


All Men Hate the Wretched

by hannibalbutnotthatone (victorchewitsshouldntdothis)



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, POV Connor, Well I hope you like Frankenstein and smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-16 04:00:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18087020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victorchewitsshouldntdothis/pseuds/hannibalbutnotthatone
Summary: Before the deviancy case begins in earnest, Connor is in need of something productive to fill his time. Acting on his own to investigate a potential problem in the form of the antisocial son of a CyberLife shareholder turns out to be more trouble than he expected. The problem lingers past the start of his assignment, and before long, Connor finds himself getting lost in the question of his own identity. And then, things decide to get worse.





	1. 3.15pm, October 6th, 2038

** 3.15pm, October 6th, 2038. **

Cracks were starting to show. Problems were arising all over the city of Detroit, one by one, water droplets forming on the edge of a rain gutter, before falling over the edge. It was easier to assume that was all it ever would be. Just a slow drip in the background that could be ignored. The way that most people were choosing to ignore this, if they had heard about it at all. Connor was not one of those people. Not a person at all, actually, but that was not the point. It was his job to look into this. He knew better than to just let the drips go by ignored. It was always a sign of something larger. Someday soon, it would rain again.

There had not been that much for him to do so far. He was still a new prototype, and it was clear enough that law enforcement in the area was wary of his ilk at best. At worst, they were actively hostile towards him. Either way, it stopped him from getting much done. He was at the mercy of a system that did not trust him. For now, that was fine. As long as he was utilised when the problem eventually, and inevitably, got worse. All it meant was that, aside from a successful first mission that had been used as evidence in favour of deploying him to more crime scenes, a plan that was yet to see much action, he had a lot of time on his hands. He had assisted with a few other minor entanglements when there were not enough bodies to go around, but he had spent most of his time in the world so far analysing data. Lately, there had been an increase in the number of crimes involving deviants. Androids that had gone rogue, who thought they felt something. That was the real reason he was here at all. To outthink his own kind.

During his general research, Connor had flagged a potential security problem. It was not the kind you solved by picking a new password and throwing together a few lines of code. It was the kind with a padded bank account and a lot of time on its hands. One of CyberLife’s relatively high-end shareholders, Geoffrey Harrison, took an active interest in the company. That was not particularly unusual, and there were other people who had bought a lot of stock in the company who wanted to know how their money was being spent. Harrison was nothing out of the ordinary, just a rich man enjoying his slice of one of the most successful businesses of all time. The problem was his son.

Gabriel Vincent, as represented by the data: Thirty-two years old. Unemployed. Ongoing medical issues. And an outspoken internet presence on just about every topic in the modern world. That last one was what flagged him up as a potential problem. The armchair philosopher had steadily turned his attention more and more towards the topic of androids. The timing was almost certainly a coincidence, but as someone who had the potential to be a risk to CyberLife security, he was worth investigating. At this point, anything was worth investigating, if it just meant some boots on the ground fieldwork. Connor was aching to be used.

The man in question lived in a large house in a quieter part of the city. Connor was standing outside of it now. It was a nice place, well-kept. All the curtains were drawn on the inside. That was rarely a sign of anything good. Happy, well-adjusted people tended to like the sunshine. Connor knocked on the door, and heard nothing happen in response. If he had not done his research, he might have assumed that Vincent was out, but he had done. One of those ongoing medical issues written in his files was agoraphobia. He had to be inside. Connor leant on the doorbell, hearing the sound buzzing beyond the wall. Eventually, he heard footsteps, and an anguished snort of frustration. A moment later, the door was yanked back, and he was face to face with his future problem.

He looked like a shut-in. Even in the middle of the afternoon, he was wearing pyjamas. They were mustard yellow and clashed dramatically with the fuchsia, thick knit jumper that he looked to have thrown on over the top just to answer the door. There were bags under his eyes that clearly had not sprung up overnight. He had short, dark blonde hair that had the reign of his face, covering about half of it with uncombed pipes of straw. He gave Connor a once over, eyeing him with suspicion, as he held the door tightly in his hand.

“The fuck do you want with me? Did he send you over here?”

It was not an alien concept for humans to react badly to his presence. Still, of all of the people he might have been sent to look into, Connor had not expected outright hostility from this one. Vincent’s online presence indicated that he was sympathetic towards androids. That was, after all, why Connor was here. He was considering his response when Vincent sighed, rapping his fingers against the back of the door.

“You’re not like what he normally sends over. You’re not some kind of _therapist_ one, are you? I’ve heard they have those now.”

“My name is Connor. I’m an android sent by CyberLife.” This greeting was rewarded with a dead-eyed shrug.

“Aren’t you all? Listen, just tell my dad that I’m eating my carrots and tidying my room, and you did a super good job checking on me, all right? Get yourself a little lollipop download or whatever for a job well done. I have things to do.” That last insistence did not exactly ring true. Connor decided that clarification was needed for the conversation to progress. He stepped forward, putting his foot in the way of Vincent’s subtle attempt to shut the door in his face.

“Gabriel Vincent? Your father is a prominent shareholder with CyberLife. He didn’t send me here.” Although that assurance seemed to confuse him, Vincent visibly relaxed, and let the hand supporting the door slacken.

“Just call me Gabriel, don’t get all formal with it,” he muttered. “Well then, why are you here? I don’t have anything to do with that stuff. I don’t own any stock or anything. You’re pissing on the wrong tree.” He looked over Connor again, furrowing his brows as he did so. “What kind of android are you? I don’t recognise you at all.”

“I am an RK800 model android, designed to do the job of an investigator, and assist –”

“You’re a fucking cop?” Gabriel snorted. His hand was steady on the door again. If Connor had not been blocking him from doing so, he would likely have already slammed it shut. “I don’t have time for any cops. Get out of here.”

“That’s not exactly how law enforcement works,” Connor replied, allowing himself to match tone with the other man. Gabriel scowled.

“Go trouble a screwdriver,” he spat, and attempted to close the door anyway. Connor pushed back against the door from the other side, keeping it fixed in place, and holding Gabriel’s gaze.

“Do you have a problem with the police?” he asked. Reams of internet activity would certainly support the argument that he did.

“Everyone has a problem with the police, if they’re paying attention,” Gabriel said snottily. “Anyway, what _do_ you want? Is this a noise complaint? Is my lawn too tall? Am I going to prison for internet crimes?” He was starting to grin, and Connor could tell that his hostility had nothing to do with fear. If he was going to make a guess, he would say that this man felt well above any danger that Connor posed to him. Natural, perhaps, for someone in his position. He had probably been bailed out plenty of times before now. Deep pockets were like magic in this world. Regardless, he was not going to listen, and he was not going to make this easy. If Connor wanted to get any information from him at all, he would have to find a way to trick it out of him. Luckily, that was something he was made for. There were some magic tricks of his own up his sleeves.

“I was sent by CyberLife to investigate a potential bomb threat against you.” That changed Gabriel’s expression quickly. Suddenly, he turned cold, and Connor pushed ahead before he could interrupt again. “Although the threat might not be credible, CyberLife sent me as a courtesy towards the son of an important shareholder. After all, we wouldn’t want to see anything happen to you.” He paused for a moment, before adding. “It would only make the company look bad.”

Gabriel’s frosty hospitality seemed to have all but melted away, now that he had something to be scared of. Still, he hovered at the threshold, unwilling to commit to letting a police android into his house in even the most dire of circumstances. Eventually, he sighed again.

“You want to come inside, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Connor answered. “For your sake.”

“Why is there a bomb threat against me?” Gabriel asked, narrowing his eyes and holding tightly to the door as if it were a shield. Connor had counted the win too soon. This man was certainly paranoid. Even if he had justification in this instance, he did not have any evidence to support his feelings. It was still irrational. He had no reason to think that Connor was lying. Androids rarely lied. Most models had no purpose for it.

“Some of your online activity has attracted negative attention.” Gabriel nodded at that. Connor felt that it was a safe bet of a lie. He would probably feel vindicated by the idea that his shouting into the void had aroused anything more than snarky replies. It would make it easier to lead into the questions he was there to ask, as well.

“Fine, come in,” Gabriel said at last. He stepped back from the door, and Connor was able to enter the house at last. “But I’m going to walk around with you.” Connor was already looking around the living room. It was a large, open-plan room with a wide window at the far end of it, hidden behind a curtain. It looked like something straight out of a catalogue. That is to say, the room was lifeless and unlived in. Gabriel clearly did not spend much time in here.

Not wanting to be sloppy, Connor took his time inspecting the untarnished living room all the same. Really, the only thing of any interest was a full bookshelf, but the titles were common library fodder, and nothing worth focusing on. They were only of note at all because they looked like the one thing in there that had not come with the house.

“Do you live alone?” he asked. Gabriel answered from right behind him. As long as Connor was in his house, it seemed he was going to keep him close.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure you already knew that.” Connor did already know that. From what he had gathered, Gabriel did not have many social contacts. Certainly nothing that could be called a relationship. He was a classic loner.

The living room gave way to a corridor on both sides. Connor chose the right side arbitrarily and began in that direction, with Gabriel following him closely. He opened a door to reveal a bathroom, and kept walking. There was a cupboard behind the next door along, unused aside from some cleaning supplies sitting on the floor, and a green army jacket hanging on the back of the door. He kept on.

“Was this house bought by your father?” Connor asked. The place was legally in Gabriel’s name, but he suspected that it had been a gift. A sigh rattled over his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Gabriel admitted. “ _I’d_ be fine with an apartment, but I guess that’s not good enough for me. At least I don’t have to think about anything this way.” There was a lot of hostility down this line of questioning. Connor had obviously found the right things to ask already. He slowed his pace, waiting for Gabriel to stop beside him, which he did. It was always easier to understand what people were really saying when you could look them in the face.

“You have a different surname to your father,” he said, trying to keep his tone casual for the time being. There was no reason to focus any of that hostility on him if he could avoid it. It would only get in the way of his goal. “Did you change it?”

“Obviously I changed it,” Gabriel snapped, narrowing his eyes and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “It didn’t change itself! My father’s a well-known guy. You think I want every whoever to know who I am right off the bat? I don’t. I’m no-one’s business but my own.” Connor could not decide if he believed that the change was strictly for privacy reasons, or if the hostility Gabriel had for his father had been the driving force. Either way, the man did not seem like he was outright lying. There was at least some truth to what he was saying. Maybe his motivation was foggy to him as well.

“I see,” Connor said. He started to turn back around, but stopped himself. It would seem more like his questions were spontaneous afterthoughts if he interrupted himself occasionally. “You mentioned that your father has sent you androids in the past.”

“And?” Gabriel’s arms were still folded tightly across his chest. “None of them stay. I don’t want someone trying to babysit me. Usually I have to trick them into leaving, but they do in the end. I think he’s given up lately, though, it’s been months since the last one showed up.” He stopped himself for a moment and stared at Connor, sneering with the corner of his mouth. “Until today, anyway.”

“Your father did not send me. I’ve never met him,” Connor restated. It did not seem to sink in. “Why don’t you want an android in your house? Your online activity indicates that you feel sympathetic towards them.” It indicated a lot more than that, but there was no time to unpack every rambling thought that Gabriel had ever espoused online. That was a project no-one had the time or the will for.

“I like fish as well, but I wouldn’t want someone to put a stingray in my kitchen.” At this point, he leant in closer to Connor, as if what he was about to say next was a secret. Connor paid close attention. “And stingrays don’t even have recording devices in them! Imagine that.”

“Your discomfort is because you’re afraid of being spied on?” Connor asked. Not the secret he had been hoping for. Gabriel nodded. At least the answer made sense.

“That, and I don’t want my dad running my life. I’m not a teenager, as you can plainly see.” He scratched the side of his head. It was true that the first few strands of greying hair had appeared there, Connor noticed. “I can look after myself.”

“You look as if you’ve been sleeping poorly,” Connor said. It was an instinctual response. Gabriel ignored him, but his irritation was obvious.

“Maybe this doesn’t match with everything you’ve _read_ ,” he said icily, “but I don’t think humans need androids to hold their hands through every aspect of life.” It was clear that he resented the idea that Connor had looked into him before coming over. He should have been more subtle about it. “We managed before, and I know how to make a sandwich on my own. Do you understand what I mean?”

“You dislike the implication that you can’t manage your own life,” Connor answered.

“Exactly. Have a cookie,” Gabriel scoffed back.

“Then you have a problem with androids?”

“Sorry, wrong. Delete your cookies.” Gabriel turned away from him, and waited for him to start walking again. Connor did so, and the two of them began down the corridor again. There was a door ahead, which Connor moved to open. Behind it was the kitchen. It was as sterile and untouched as the rest of the house, but with one interesting difference. There was someone inside. Connor stopped dead in his tracks and fixed on the unexpected presence. He was looking at an AV500 model android. It was drying its hands on a dishcloth, standing in front of the sink. It smiled at Connor and Gabriel as they appeared in the doorway.

“Hey,” Gabriel said, walking over to the android. “I didn’t know you were in here. Ignore Robocop over there. He won’t be here long.” Connor was trying to process the situation. Gabriel had specifically said that he turned away the androids his father tried to burden him with. More than that, the AV500 was not even a domestic model. They typically worked in service jobs, and were not designed to be part of a household. It was illogical and inconsistent, and it bothered him. He wanted some answers.

“This is your android?” he asked. Gabriel scoffed at him. He turned back towards the man drying its hands at the sink without answering.

“I’ve washed the dishes.”

“Thanks. I don’t think there’s anything else to do. You can go hang out in the room if you want.” The android nodded and began towards the door, but Connor stepped into its path. It looked back at him with a bland smile, waiting for a reason for the interruption.

“Excuse me,” Connor insisted, turning to Gabriel. “Is this your android?”

“Ignore him,” Gabriel said, looking straight past Connor. “Just go. I won’t be too much longer.” The android nodded again, and once more tried to walk away. Connor stopped it with a firm hand on its chest.

“Do you belong to him?” he asked. “I need you to answer me.” The android looked back at him. Connor felt an absence there. No fear, no concern, no turmoil at all.

“No.” After answering, it stayed placidly where it was held. “Will that be all?” Connor let it go, and it left the room with another flat smile. Within a second, Gabriel was standing next to him. If he was a human, he might have jumped.

“Don’t bother him,” he said sharply.

“I won’t,” Connor answered, looking towards where it had gone. His initial suspicion had been that the android was a deviant. It would make the most sense in the situation. The reaction he had got from Gabriel, the jumbled answers he had given, would all fit perfectly well if he was trying to hide a deviant in his house. Connor could be wrong. His analysis was not completely perfect. But it did not seem to him that the android they had just spoken with was anything out of the ordinary. Deviants acted emotionally. They were fearful and unstable. A deviant would be afraid to be discovered. That did not seem to be the case here.

“Are we done?” Gabriel asked. “You’re not exactly searching hard. I’d have better luck with a metal detector. Besides, I don’t see how anyone could have planted a bomb in here. I’d have noticed something.” Connor turned back towards him, refocusing.

“Why did you say that you sent all the androids away?” he asked. Gabriel tried to suppress a smirk.

“Because I did,” he answered smugly. “My father didn’t send him over for me. So, is that everything?” He began to guide Connor towards the door, and Connor allowed himself to be led out of the kitchen and back down the corridor.

“The AV500 is not a housekeeper,” he said, as they went. Gabriel did not stop for a moment.

“He’s not a housekeeper.”

“It was doing housework when we interrupted.” Gabriel stopped in his efforts to sweep Connor out of his house with an angry sigh.

“ _He_ was helping out. That’s all.” Gabriel bothered his hair, revealing for a moment the second eye that he had hidden underneath his bangs. “Do you have any more shit for me?”

“Yes,” Connor said, glad of the opening. “If the android is not registered to you, then why exactly is it in your home?”

“Maybe he let himself in,” Gabriel said with a sneer. He was quickly losing his patience. Connor was not satisfied. He knew there was more here. The situation was strange, and strange situations were a flimsy tarp thrown over something worse.

“You have a lot of ongoing medical problems,” Connor began. Gabriel’s lip twitched. “Specifically, you have a history of mental health issues. Do any of those problems affect your judgement in daily life?” Gabriel’s whole face went dark. Without speaking, he grabbed Connor by the arm and dragged him the last few feet to the front door. Connor did not fight back. He could not cause a fuss in this situation, and it did not seem likely that the man was trying to do him any real harm. What was certain, was that he had clearly overstayed his welcome. Gabriel opened the door and gave Connor a shove in the chest to politely suggest he step out of it, which he did.

“Fucking bomb threat,” Gabriel spat. “I thought your lot weren’t meant to lie.” He tapped his fingers roughly against the back of the door, sticking a manic smile on his face. “What? I’ve been deemed unstable, and the shareholders wanted to make sure I won’t be some kind of embarrassment, is that it? Well, fuck you. Fuck you right down your shit-spewing plastic throat! Get out of here!”

“If I could just –” The door slammed in Connor’s face, forcing him to take a step backward to avoid losing his nose. Unstable might not be the right description, but someone should have a word with him about all that unspent aggression. Connor waited for a moment on the slim off chance that Gabriel decided to open the door again and hear him out. Shockingly, it did not happen. Connor had to walk away.

Nothing of worth had been achieved, but Connor was sure there was something under the surface in that house. Unfortunately for him, he only had an instinct, and nothing he could show to anybody. Which meant it was back to CyberLife to wait for a real mission. It could almost be considered frustrating to think he was close to something and had to watch it be taken away from him. Next time, he was going to have to try harder. Next time they let him out, that was.


	2. 5.07pm, November 6th, 2038

** 5.07pm, November 6th, 2038. **

Today had certainly been busy. Connor brushed at the sleeve of his jacket, which was still dusted with an uneven layer of plant residue. A souvenir from his chase across the rooftops earlier. He had managed to catch up to the deviant in the end, but it had tried to lose him by pushing his partner over a ledge. Although Connor had considered his options, he knew that Lieutenant Anderson would survive without him. He cornered the deviant and watched it kill itself. Perhaps a few less seconds of internal calculation would have brought it in alive. Regardless, the Lieutenant had been far less interested in the nuance of it all. To say he was angry would be a gross understatement. Apparently, it had been inhuman for Connor to leave him behind to finish the mission, an insult which Connor could not understand. He was inhuman. That was simply fact.

They had returned to the station only briefly before Lieutenant Anderson announced his plans to go home and wash the day down the drain. Connor had protested the idea. It was not late. There was more work they could be doing. It turned out the topic was not up for debate. When he had been asked what leads they had that were so goddamn important they could not wait for tomorrow, Connor had not had anything much to respond with. There were few solid avenues to go down at this point in the investigation. They were dealing with things as they came up, but most of what was sitting in the case files had already gone cold. Nonetheless, Connor wanted to work. He wanted to have something to do. The only thing of substance he had in his existence was the investigation. Focused did not do him justice.

It was odd that his mind went were it did when the Lieutenant demanded to know what he wanted to look into. He rationalised it to himself with the reminder that the loose end had bothered him all along. He had just never had an opportunity to go back to it. That man, the son of the shareholder, Gabriel Vincent. It still felt as if there was something to be explored there. Something to unearth. Connor had blurted out the suggestion with little thought. Unsurprisingly, the Lieutenant had not agreed to follow him on what he saw as a wild goose chase to some weirdo’s house. It was a waste of time. Connor knew that he might be right, but with things speeding up in the deviancy investigation, they had to open every door. This was one he had been trying to get back open for a while.

There had been no further contact with Gabriel since the man had slammed his front door in his face a month ago. No reciprocal contact, at least. In his spare moments, of which he had a lot, Connor had kept up to date with his online presence. The think pieces he wrote about androids had increased in both number and intensity. Connor was certain that Gabriel was following the news very closely. Most of the case files he had been charged with for the investigation had been kept out of the official media, but the internet was another story. People could always find threads to tug on if they wanted to, now. Some footage of a deviant recorded with a phone camera, somebody’s blog post about their neighbour’s vanished housekeeper, rumours and gossip to sustain a person for days. It was all out there. And an invested mind had access to all of it the second they wanted it.

Gabriel’s disjointed philosophy had lurched from speculation to outright insistence that androids were conscious beings. There were scattered pockets of people who agreed with him. Every cause had its sympathisers and its humanists, but none of those others had their foot in the door of CyberLife. Gabriel might have protested the idea that he had any desire to make use of his father’s connections, but as long as the potential was there, he could become a danger. He was worth following up on again, Connor knew it. There was too much anger bubbling away behind his recent writing to ignore who was on the other side of the screen.

Lieutenant Anderson had no interest in the summary of this information that Connor tried to press upon him. He wanted to go home, and he did just that, marching out of the station with his back to a still speaking Connor, offering him a wave as a parting gift. Then he was gone. The reaction was frustrating, but Connor knew that he was tired. After what had happened on the roof, he did not want to push him. Without anything solid to go on, his pleas were falling on deaf, and drained, ears. That was what had led him back here to Gabriel’s house. If no-one would come with him, then he would have to look into this by himself. It would still be more relaxing than getting spattered with blue blood on the edge of a roof, regardless of what happened next.

Connor waited patiently on the doorstep. He had knocked and rung the doorbell, twice. Gabriel would have to answer it eventually. He was not going to leave until he did. Connor pushed the bell again, and the familiar buzz bounced around inside the living room, muffled only slightly by the door. The house would be better off with thicker insulation. Finally, the sound of footsteps came stomping down the corridor, and Connor straightened himself up, neatening his tie, preparing for what would certainly be a confrontation.

After their last encounter, he would be foolish to expect a warm welcome.

The door was yanked away and Connor found himself face to face with the scowling man of the house. Gabriel snorted air out of his nose and stepped outside, forcing Connor backwards and closing the door behind them. At least he was dressed today. By someone’s standards. He was wearing a battered sweatshirt covered in a pattern of pizza slices, and a pair of grey jeans that had holes travelling up from the knees. There was an indigo flannel jacket over the top of it all, and the mix of colours and patterns made him look something like a seeing eye puzzle. One where the eventual goal was to catch sight of the person for the clothes.

“I recognise you. Didn’t think I’d see you again, and yet here you are.”

“That’s right,” Connor said. “I need to speak with you again.”

“Oh, need is a strong word, and you have very, very bad timing,” Gabriel hissed. “What is it? Another phony threat? Did aliens send a message warning you they’re gonna abduct my house? Is that why I get a generous helping of protect and serve today?”

“Do you believe in aliens?” Connor asked. Gabriel shook his head, smirking to himself and raising his eyebrows.

“I was joking, Robocop. Can you not tell?”

“My mistake.” He did not want to get distracted, and he felt that the longer he let Gabriel talk, the farther they would get from the point. For all his faults, he did seem to have a way of leading a conversation. “May I come in?”

“You may not,” Gabriel said. “You have no reason to be hassling me. If you did, then you wouldn’t be asking, you’d be bursting through my door with your bacon back up and dragging me off to sit in a box somewhere and learn the harmonica. Forget evidence, I don’t think _you_ even know what you’re looking for. Some people somewhere probably sent you here to poke around and hope that something rattles to the ground. Well, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing for you here. You’d better scurry back to your nest.” He leant backwards against the door with his arms folded, waiting. Connor was not going to leave as easily as that. Big words meant nothing to him.

“If I could just talk with you for a while, inside,” Connor tried again. What he really wanted was to look around. He had been here once already, and would notice if anything had changed. The last visit had not even taken him around the entire house. There could easily be something hidden away in there. He wanted to find out what it was.

“Listen, you’re not getting it,” Gabriel snapped. “Unless you can wave a pretty piece of paper in my face that says I have to let you to come inside, then you’re not getting into my house. So, do you have anything, or are you just wasting my time? Nut up or shut up.”

“I’m not familiar with that expression,” Connor admitted. Gabriel laughed, which he chose to take as a good sign. It was better than outright hostility. Laughter did not change his position, though, and he still had nothing to show for himself. Gabriel was not going to let him come in and look around unless he could hold something over his head.

“Tick tock. Can I get back to work or not?”

“Do you have any experience with illegal substances?” Connor asked abruptly, and Gabriel’s shoulders sunk down. His scowl softened, and he looked alarmed. Apparently, he was not particularly good at concealing his emotions. That was useful knowledge for later.

“No… what do you mean?” he asked, deflecting the question and wrapping his arms tighter across his shallow chest.

Connor had dug through huge swathes of the mire that was Gabriel’s online life. He had had to. Anything could turn out to be the key that finally opened him up. Among his long, disjointed threads of positing about androids and humanity and the nature of modern society, the expected armchair philosophy that Connor had already familiarised himself with, he had found a few slim nuggets of gold. It seemed that Gabriel dabbled with psychedelics and made thinly veiled reference to his habit online where he thought no-one would see it. An unfortunate decision, it turned out.

“You’ve made several references to your consumption of illegal substances online, the latest instance being on October the twenty-eighth. Do you want me to believe that you were framed?”

“All right, all right. You could at least smile when you say shit like that, you little prick.” Gabriel scowled and gave a slight shake of his head. “They didn’t send you here to bust me for maybe possibly having tripped out sometime in the past. What do you want?”

“I want you to let me come inside,” Connor restated. “If you can agree to that, then I can agree to ignore what I know about your drug habit. Otherwise, I’ll have to inform someone in Vice about it, and share the records I collected.” Gabriel stood silently for a moment, with his eyes narrowed and his lip twitching at the corner. Connor could tell that he was trying to decide if he could risk shutting the door. He was probably wondering if he had time to go back and delete anything he had been foolish enough to write up on the internet, or if it had all already been downloaded. In truth, Connor had not gone out of his way to make a copy of the information, but it was still in his head. That did not mean that anyone would care. If Gabriel called his bluff, he knew that no-one at the station was going to waste their time making him sorry for it.

“Fine. Fuck. You can come in _briefly_ , but don’t forget you’re a guest and not a cop, all right?” Gabriel turned towards the door and opened it back up, scoffing to himself as he did so.

“Of course,” Connor agreed. If he actually crossed a line here, on a mission he had not been directly sent out on, he would be in serious trouble. He was still a prototype, and doing anything to hurt a family member of one of CyberLife’s prominent financial supporters could put an end to his series completely. He stopped for a moment, standing still. It had not occurred to him before that this behaviour was so risky. He had no fear of death, and would come back again anytime something happened to him, with a new body and the same memories as before. But there was still a scenario where coming back was no longer an option, and it was out of his hands. Fear was the wrong word for what he felt in the moment, but the realisation did encourage him to be more cautious. At least when he was working on his own. He had been so focused on wanting to make progress that he had ignored how precarious his position could be.

“Did you change your mind? Hurry up!” Connor looked up to see Gabriel standing in the doorway, staring back at him. He gestured with his head for him to follow, and Connor stepped forward after him. The door shut behind them, and Gabriel pointed to the pristine living room sofa. Connor wanted the opportunity to scout out the house again, but he took the instruction. There was no point in making waves.

He went and positioned himself in the centre of the sofa, and was sure in doing so that it had barely been sat on before now. According to his research, the house had been bought years ago. It still seemed as if Gabriel had not yet moved in. Strange. The space next to him shifted, and he turned towards Gabriel, who had sat down beside him. He threw his arms over the back of the sofa and closed his eyes, sighing.

“I can’t believe this,” he muttered. “Oh, and for the record…” He wheeled around on Connor and jabbed a finger in his direction. “I don’t have a ‘drug habit’. I’ve messed around a little, but everyone has their vices. Maybe not you, but everyone _else_. Personally, I don’t see what the big difference is between the pills that doctors try and drown you in, and the stuff you buy behind McDonalds.”

“Aside from their effects, safety, purpose, and legality?” Connor asked. Gabriel shot him a mean little smirk and snorted out a single laugh.

“You’re funny, huh?” he said. “Maybe you should quit your job and focus on the comedy circuit. Better than playing at being Narc Ken. You should get Barbie to start paying alimony so you can follow your dreams.”

“My name is Connor,” Connor clarified. It was probably easy to forget, with a month having passed since their last meeting. Gabriel laughed at him again.

“Of course it is,” he muttered. “My mistake.”

“You mentioned earlier that you were working,” Connor said, launching right ahead. He did not know how much time he had before Gabriel inevitably kicked him out of the house again, but he knew there was a timer ticking away somewhere. “What are you working on?”

“A book review.” Connor could not decide whether or not that was the truth. It was possible, but it seemed more likely that he had interrupted work on another of Gabriel’s unsolicited think pieces.

“The android that was here when I last visited. May I speak with it?” It would certainly be easier to get information out of an android than its owner. He watched as Gabriel’s body stiffened and a sour look came over his face.

“He’s not here,” he answered coldly.

“When will it be back?”

“ _He_ won’t.” Gabriel ran a hand rapidly through his hair and blinked, shaking his head. His was too sensitive a reaction to a run of the mill question.

“I see,” Connor said. “Did you decide not to keep an android in the house after all?”

“What I do and don’t decide is none of your business!” Gabriel snapped suddenly. He was acting as if Connor was antagonising him on purpose. He was not even antagonising him by mistake. These were normal questions to ask in the situation. His reactions were definitely odd. “He’s no longer here. That’s all,” Gabriel added, glaring over at him.

“I find it surprising that you would retire that android. The last time I was here, you seemed protective of it.” Gabriel put his face very close to Connor’s. In a single flash of movement, they were close enough for their noses to brush, and for Connor to look directly into Gabriel’s eyes. What he saw was not promising.

“Do you hear me when I tell you to drop it?” Gabriel said. His voice was steady and cold. There was certainty behind his words. Threat. “I swear, I will throw you out of here so hard you have to crawl back home. Do you understand me?” It occurred to Connor that this man would quite easily frighten a human being in his position. His attitude, his appearance, and his living situation, not to mention what he knew from his research, gave off the impression of someone with very little to lose. An odd impression for someone wealthy and educated to give off. There were parts of this puzzle he was not seeing yet. Hopefully they were scattered nearby. He sensed his chance to search for the missing pieces would be ending soon.

“I understand. I apologise for making you feel uncomfortable.” Connor wanted what he said to sound sympathetic. There was no way forward across such damaged ground, and he had no pride when it came time to heal bruises. He was designed to socialise well with humans. Putting people at ease was one of the most lauded mechanics of his prototype. And yet, he had noticed from his interactions around the station, that such promises might be more marketing fodder than truth. He tried to smile slightly to accompany his point. Gabriel scoffed through his nose and sunk backwards into the sofa. Happy would not describe him, but he seemed to be appeased. For the moment.

“Are you done now?” Gabriel asked, his voice softer than before. He put a hand over his face and closed his eyes, waiting for the response. Connor was not done. He had nothing to show for himself, and he needed to have something. If he did not find a lead soon, he was going to have to admit that there was nothing for him here. The idea that he had wasted his time on this independent investigation did bother him. It would mean he was not as clever as he should be.

“May I look around?” Connor asked. Gabriel groaned.

“If it will shut you up, and you promise not to come around here again, then yes. Briefly.” That was good enough. This time, Connor stood and immediately peeled off to the left corridor from the entrance. There had to be something else down here, something more of interest. Gabriel hurried along behind him. There was no chance of slipping away and looking around on his own, which would have made things easier. Still, if Gabriel eventually reacted badly to his attempts to see something, it would make it obvious what he was trying to hide. He had been relatively agreeable so far for someone so pent up with anger, even if it had taken some light blackmail this time around.

The first door off the corridor concealed another bathroom. This one looked less like a showroom model, with a plastic curtain hanging in front of the bathtub that had clearly not come with the house. It was decorated with pink pictures of doughnuts. The kind of shower curtain bought to amuse children. Connor exited the room without a word. The corridor curved around a corner, and there were two more doors at the end of it. He began to consider the options, but Gabriel stepped in front of him.

“What do you want to find?” he asked. A direct question. In truth, Connor had built up a suspicion in his head that Gabriel might be hiding deviants somewhere in his big, barely touched house. It was a suspicion that had grown out of his encounter with the android he had met the last time he was here. There was no way to be certain whether or not that android had been a deviant. While it had not seemed to be the case, its presence was still suspicious. There had been more to the story than he had heard. What it did mean, especially combined with Gabriel’s obvious and vocal sympathies, was that he could easily be a cog in the machine of the deviancy problem.

How simple everything would be if the troubled son of a stockholder had used his connections to gain access to CyberLife, to somehow plant the seeds from which the deviants had sprouted. Everything could be wrapped up with such a neat bow if that was the case. Which was why Connor knew that the story would not turn out as simply as that. Nothing was ever that easy and clean.

“What’s through that door?” Connor asked, pointing arbitrarily at one of the two. What was he expecting? For Gabriel to admit defeat and step back, revealing a room full of deviant androids and the scrawled, rambling explanation as to their existence all nicely written up for him to take back to the station? No, there was no chance of that. There was very little chance of anything much happening at all, but he was not prepared to give up. Even if Gabriel had just one deviant hidden somewhere in the house, one he had attempted to ill-advisedly rescue in an effort to justify his scattered principles, it would be a success for Connor. A sign that he could do a good job on his own.

“That is the bedroom,” Gabriel answered, pointing with him. “And that’s my office,” he said, pointing at the remaining door. “There’s nothing for you in either of them, of course, but I will let you stick your head in if you can promise not to mess up my papers. There’s a system to it.” Connor had little choice but to agree. He nodded, and Gabriel walked first to the door he had pointed out as the bedroom. He opened it, and sure enough, there was a bedroom beyond. The room looked utterly untouched, and Connor did not believe for a moment that Gabriel had ever slept in there. There were no personal touches whatsoever, and the bed itself, though made, was crisply stale. No-one slept in it.

Connor was perplexed by this new turn of events. He still could not understand the irrational choice to avoid actually living in the house that you lived in. It did not make sense. Gabriel shot him a brief glance, and when he had no questions, he shut the door. He walked to the office door and, hesitating, opened it. It answered at least one of Connor’s questions.

This was where Gabriel actually lived. Calling the room an office was disingenuous. It had clearly started life as one, and the impersonal white desk and faded black desk chair against one wall must have been its original furnishings. Gabriel had forced a desperate old wardrobe into the corner, and a bookshelf made of the same whirled wood had been hammered into the far wall. He had also dragged a single bed in, and jammed it up against the bookshelf. This one was barely covered with a blanket that looked like it wanted to reach a better life for itself on the floor. The shelf was full of books, and there were more of the things scattered about the desk, and even on the ground. Clothes were thrown about, mostly over the bed, that had clearly never been let in on the invention of the laundry hamper. There were papers and notebooks dropped at random around the place, and they were joined by unwashed bowls, plenty of them still containing spoons and uneaten cereal. This room was in utter contrast to the rest of the house, and Connor felt as if he had just been let directly inside Gabriel’s brain.

“This is where you live,” he said, an unnecessary acknowledgement of what one of them already knew and one of them had realised the moment he saw it.

“Yeah,” Gabriel said. “And there’s nothing fun and interesting in here, is there? So, that’s the tour over. Have fun?” He edged Connor out of the way and shut the door behind them, standing in front of it and fixing him with a blank look. He was waiting for him to leave of his own accord, but Connor was not ready to go just yet.

“It looks as if you would benefit from having a housekeeper,” Connor said. He had to. It was alarmingly obvious now that he had seen where Gabriel actually spent his time why he had been so burdened by offers of domestic help in the past.

“You would benefit from an experimental tracheotomy,” Gabriel snorted back.

“Why would you get rid of the android that was taking care of your house if you had already established a friendship with it?” Connor asked. He had seen evidence of the android washing dishes the last time he was here. Even if it was not meant for domestic tasks, it had been doing them.

“That’s not what happened!” Gabriel snapped. “I told you to drop it!” Whatever secret the man was keeping, any mention of it certainly triggered his temper. Connor wondered if he knew that the choice of outfit hampered his ability to seem threatening. The plaid jacket was bad enough on its own without the pizza patterned sweatshirt to go with it.

“Something clearly happened.” Connor was pushing him now. He had to remember that he was playing with fire, that he was out on his own with no safety net if he made the wrong move, but even so, he could not stop himself from pushing. He wanted the win. “Something went wrong with your android, and you’re trying to keep it hidden. Where is it? Did it run away on its own, or did you help it? Is it still here somewhere?” He raised his voice with each new question, trying to force out an answer. And he finally pushed too hard.

“That is it!” Gabriel shouted. He rammed himself into Connor, catching him by surprise. Connor found himself shoved up against the wall, with one of Gabriel’s hands wrapped tightly around his bicep, and Gabriel’s other arm planted firmly under his chin, across his throat.

It was an impressive attempt, but Connor knew he could break free if he wanted to. Gabriel was stronger than he had assumed, but Connor was built to upend criminals, human and android alike. He would have no problem getting out of Gabriel’s grip. He also knew that he had no choice but to stay in it. If he resorted to even the most minor level of violence against a human he had not been specifically tasked with apprehending, then he would end up in various parts in a scrapyard somewhere. This situation was his own fault. He was stuck where he was until Gabriel let him go.

“You think if I was hiding someone like that that I’d be stupid enough to let you in to look around? You misread me. I might have my issues, but I’m not stupid. I’m starting to think you might be.” Gabriel pushed his arm harder against Connor’s throat. If he needed to breathe, he would be struggling to do so at the moment. As it was, he just stood rigidly and waited for Gabriel to finish.

“I apologise for the assumptions,” he said, the words coming out choked. Even if he did not need his throat to breathe, he did need it to speak comfortably. Gabriel did not relax his hold. In fact, Connor felt the hand around his arm tense.

“I know how much trouble a CyberLife android would be in for screwing with me, you know,” Gabriel breathed. His tone had shifted. His anger had given way somewhat to a kind of boastfulness. “My dad would have you chopped into phone chargers for coming over here without any kind of warrant, just on some hunch. It wasn’t even anyone else’s hunch, was it? You came here on your own. It was your idea.”

“Yes, it was my idea,” Connor admitted. The arm across his throat mercifully relaxed enough for him to speak more easily. He preferred that. Hearing his voice sound so hampered was odd for him. “I knew I was missing something after last time. The feeling wouldn’t go away.”

“Feeling?” Gabriel laughed. “You had a _feeling_ about me?”

“I had a hunch based on the evidence available to me.” Connor rephrased himself for clarity. “I do not have feelings of the conventional sense.” Gabriel leant forward, with a mean-spirited grin on his face. He took his arm away from Connor’s throat and gripped his other bicep instead, keeping him pinned against the wall.

“Of course you don’t,” he breathed. “Heaven forbid. That’s what you’re trying to ferret out, isn’t it? Androids who dare to have feelings. I’ve read all about it.”

“Then you know how dangerous deviants can be!” People who were sympathetic towards rogue androids rarely saw the darker side of what they were defending. Connor could still remember the family, the one he had been sent to help just after he was initialised. Their household android had taken the daughter hostage. She had been safe in the end, thankfully, but only because of Connor’s intervention. The case had attracted media attention, and Connor was sure that Gabriel could have learnt even more about it if he had put in some research.

“We’re all dangerous,” Gabriel scoffed. “You think I’m not dangerous because you’re strong enough to get away from me if you want, right?” Apparently, that thought process had never been a secret. Maybe Connor had underestimated him slightly. “Then why haven’t you? Because you can’t. If you try anything, you’re dead, and you know it.”

“Androids cannot die. _I_ cannot die,” Connor stressed. Gabriel responded by gripping his arms tighter and pressing him closer against the wall. Connor found that Gabriel’s leg had worked itself between his. He was starting to wonder if he would find it quite so easy to break away, even if he wanted to. He had already made some mistakes here today. He could be wrong about this, as well.

“Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it,” Gabriel murmured. Connor could not understand what he was trying to say. Before he had a chance to ask, Gabriel suddenly let go of him and moved away, falling back against the opposite wall with a sigh. Connor stood still for a moment, before brushing off his clothes.

“Tell me what happened to the android.”

“You can go now,” Gabriel said. His anger had vanished, and he was gazing listlessly at some point on the wall, looking at nothing.

“Tell me what happened!” Connor insisted. This was not fair. He had worked hard, done his research, made the right choices. He deserved to be right. He wanted to succeed. He was going to end up leaving with nothing again, and that thought would not sit right within him. “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“I wasn’t offering, I told you to get out,” Gabriel said again. “I’m calling your bluff. You have nothing on me, and if you come here again, I’ll report you for harassment. You know where the door is. Shall I help you out of it?” Connor hung his head. Gabriel was right, of course. He had not let anything slip, and there were no clues in the house as to what he did not want Connor to know. He had no choice but to leave.

Gabriel walked him to the door, an almost polite end to another frustrating visit. Connor waited for him to open it and stepped out when he did so. He turned back to Gabriel for a moment, trying to decide what words to choose to close their encounter on. There should be something for him to say.

“God, I wish you some good luck,” Gabriel said, shook his head, and shut the door. All before Connor could formulate a single thought.


	3. 11.39am, November 7th, 2038

** 11.39am, November 7th, 2038. **

Things had changed a lot in very little time.

In the early hours of the morning, Connor had found himself in a park with Lieutenant Anderson. He had thought that chasing the deviant across the rooftops would be the most dramatic thing that happened yesterday, but things had found a way to get worse. After his fraught conversation with Gabriel, a call had come in about a death involving an android at the Eden Club. He had gone looking for the Lieutenant, and eventually found him at home. Drunk, passed out, and seemingly suicidal. It had not been an easy encounter to get through for either of them. Connor could tell that his intervention was not welcomed, but he had little choice in the matter. The events that took place at the club were worse again.

The death had been a murder, and a deviant was responsible. When Connor finally found it, after a hurried search, it was not alone. It claimed to have fallen in love with another android. It had killed in self-defence, trying to save its own life, and had taken the chance in the aftermath to run away with the woman she loved. It was a pretty story, and Connor knew that was all it was. He had known. When he was pointing a gun at the two of them, he had known it was nothing but a story. Yet he had hesitated. He had not shot them, and they had fled before he could reconsider. Oddly enough, the Lieutenant had seemed impressed by his decision, even though it spat in the face of their investigation. It did not make sense.

That brought them to the park. The Lieutenant had taken them out there a little after midnight and sat for a while, letting the day sink in. It had been snowing. Piles of it crunched underneath Connor’s shoes when he went over to talk to Hank.

Their discussion was barely about work. At this point, that was no longer what seemed to matter. To Hank at least. In just a couple of days, things had changed more than they had any right to. And they could both tell that the changes were not through yet. Connor could not justify why he had not stopped the girls at the club from escaping. He did not know himself, let alone know how to express it to someone else. And yet, Hank did not seem to fault him for it. Neither for the fact that he had done it, nor the fact that he could not explain why. At least Connor did not have to deal with blame on top of everything else. It was better that Hank supported him than not. It quickly turned out that there were still some areas where that support had failed to reach.

Eventually, Hank had pulled a gun on him. He had threatened Connor and asked if he was afraid to die. The answer was a surprise to both of them. Yes. He had said that he was afraid to die. It had worked how he wanted it to, and Hank had lowered the gun, his momentary hostility apparently resolved, his questions sated. Connor should have found it preferable to stay functional. Death would inevitably mean a loss of at least some small pieces of memory, as well as a disruption to his mission. He should be comfortable in the fact that a lie had spared him the trouble of it. The problem was, he could not be sure that he had been lying. It had not felt like a lie when he said it, and it had come out far too fast for him to even be sure of his thought process. It was troubling him. And he was not even programmed to be capable of being troubled.

It was inevitable where he had ended up after all that.

Connor found himself once more standing on the threshold of Gabriel’s house. He had not knocked on the door yet. He had to process first. Why was he here? That was a good question that he was grasping for an answer to, scrabbling in the deep water of his head, but none of the possibilities he reached out for could support his weight. At this rate, he was going to sink before he found one. For all he knew, there was no answer, and he was just here out of habit. His systems favoured routine. Maybe he had just retraced his footsteps, no deeper meaning required. Connor felt for the coin in his pocket and took it in his hand. He spun the little disc through his fingers a few times, catching the late afternoon sun in its face, before tucking it away again. There were no answers out here. If he wanted something to hold onto, it was waiting for him inside. Though he was still uncertain as to weather he was going to see a life preserver or a shark when the door opened. Only one way to find out.

After he knocked, he had to wait for a while. Gabriel came eventually, and Connor was both surprised and impressed to see that he was wearing normal clothes today. Relatively speaking. The army jacket he had seen hanging up on his first visit covered an untucked dress shirt and a pair of dark jeans. He was even wearing boots.

“Have you been outside?” Connor asked, without bringing his gaze up from the floor. Gabriel did suffer with agoraphobia. He had not invented that fact. Connor had assumed that going outside was off the table for him. It was one of the few things that made him less suspicious as a person, limiting his access to the world and all the nasty things that were in it. Apparently, Connor had assumed too much.

“I had to get milk. I just got back.” Gabriel sounded slightly defensive, as if he had not expected anyone to comment on the situation. Presumably, he had not. Who else would have noticed the change?

“I thought you were unable to leave the house,” Connor said. Gabriel shook his head, glancing away with an amused curl of his lip.

“See, that’s on you,” he said. “You’ve got ‘can’t’ and ‘won’t’ confused. Physically, I can leave the house just fine. Do I, if I can avoid it? No, but who else is going to get the milk for my cereal? Thus, you see the problem.”

“Perhaps your life would be easier if you had an android to assist you with such tasks,” Connor said. Gabriel sneered at him, leaning himself up shoulder first against the doorframe.

“I don’t know, the past couple of days I’ve decided that androids can be really fucking annoying.” Gabriel stared at him long enough for Connor to realise that he was the focus of that particular ire. “Anyway, Interrogation Magic Ken. Don’t tell me you forgot how our little chat ended yesterday. I warned you that if you came around to harass me again, I’d call it in. What’s it gonna be?”

“My name is Connor,” Connor said. Perhaps the similar first syllable was tripping him up. “You seem to be in a more agreeable mood today.” It was true. Gabriel seemed more relaxed. That, or tired. It was hard to tell. Something that was not helped by the fact that his mood seemed to shift rapidly. If Connor was unlucky, it would swing right back to anger at any moment.

“I slept for twelve straight hours and I only woke up to buy milk,” Gabriel informed him flatly. “My emotions aren’t awake yet. I’d fuck off before they show up and see who I’m talking to.” He stretched his neck against the shape of the doorframe, sending his hair cascading over the rest of his face. Now both his eyes had vanished under the dark blonde curtain. It was a miracle that he could struggle through life without the gift of depth perception.

“I didn’t come here to harass you,” Connor said. That felt like the truth. He did not relish in upsetting or angering anyone. Sometimes it was just the nature of his work.

“Well, that’s a relief.” Gabriel stretched again, sending an arm shooting up in the air, before bringing it down to scratch the shaggy shape of his head. He pushed the hair out of his face enough to see, and narrowed his eyes a little. “Say. Here’s a question for you. Did you pick your own name out, or what? Why Connor?”

“My name was assigned to me. Androids do not choose their own names.” He paused for a moment. “Which I believe we have in common with humans.”

“Oh, no, I changed my name,” Gabriel reminded him. “Not my first name, but I mean… you know what I mean.” The aforementioned attempt to distance himself from his recognisable surname. Connor had since checked the records to discover that all Gabriel had done was appeal to have his middle and last names swapped around. The legal system had let him jump all the way from Gabriel Vincent Harrison to Gabriel Harrison Vincent. A change that Connor personally could not see the value in.

“Yes, I suppose that’s an option,” Connor admitted. “But there is no circumstance where an android would need to change their own name.” Gabriel shut his eyes and sighed to himself.

“Cool. Good talk. Anyway… I think that’ll do for today.” He stepped back and began to shut the door, but Connor threw his arm out to stop him.

“Wait!” he cried, holding his hand out. Gabriel stood dead still, staring at him with wide eyes. The reaction, the intensity of it, had been unexpected. Connor did not know why he had acted so desperately. He let his arm fall back to his side and straightened up, suffering from what could almost be considered embarrassment. No, confusion. It was just confusion at his unusual reaction. It had been too dramatic for the situation at hand.

Something in him had reacted badly to the thought of Gabriel shutting that door in his face again. Something in him had needed to stop it from happening. It seemed foolish now, now that the danger was passed. Why he even wanted to carry on their interaction was lost to him. It made little sense. Gabriel might know something, he might know nothing. Either way, Connor had enough to be dealing with already, enough official work to chew through for his mission to be picking at other loose threads. It had been fine enough to go looking for something when he had had nothing better to fill his time, but that was not the case anymore. The investigation into the deviancy problem was heating up by the day, if not the hour, and he had to focus. He just… could not. He could not let this go. The reason was still a mystery to him. All he knew was that it was uncomfortable to be fixated on something so illogical to his progress.

Gabriel seemed just as confused as he was. It was clear that he wanted to shut the door, but he was not letting himself go through with it. He was waiting for something, but he had no idea what to say to make it happen. They were both struggling. Eventually, Connor chose to break the silence. It was almost physical, and he needed something to cut through it. Something else to focus on.

“Will you talk to me for a while? Please.” Connor almost sounded like he was pleading. Again, he had to wonder what he was doing. He had been wrong to come here. Not just today, but ever. It was a bad decision. He should never have attempted to go out on his own. At least he had learned his lesson now. Now he would never try something like this again.

“About… what?” Gabriel asked slowly. He was not as hostile as Connor had thought. When he did not feel cornered, he was actually quite responsive. Not that it mattered. This was the wrong thing to be doing. Connor needed to leave. He just did not seem to be doing that, even as he thought about it.

Talk about what, that was an excellent question, and one that Connor had no answer to. He had not come here with a plan. He was not hunting deviants anymore. It would be easier if he was. He had come here for something else, something that his mind could reach for but could not touch, something he could only see the silhouette of. No dimension, no colour. Just a shape, somewhere in the distance inside his head. Something he was looking for that remained out of sight.

“I…” Connor started. A false start. Nothing wanted to come out after it. The longer this went on, the more he felt like someone had fixed a magnifying glass high above him, and he was waiting to be cooked by the sun. It had to end. He was doubting himself, and that was not a feeling he was familiar or comfortable with. “I don’t know,” he said.

Gabriel fixed him with a look of incredulity. He must have assumed that he was lying, buying for time, carrying on the same as he had been yesterday. That was unfair, but then Connor could hardly except anything else. He had lied to him every time they had met so far. Actually… It occurred to him that lying might be his only option today as well. He considered for a moment, going back over everything he knew about Gabriel in his head. There was an answer there. He should have seen it sooner.

“Some of the things you’ve written about,” Connor began, widening his eyes a little and trying to force some desperation into his voice. He had to sell this performance. “You think androids are conscious beings. Like humans. Isn’t that right?”

“Maybe,” Gabriel muttered. “Lots of people do. More all the time. And…?”

“Lately, it feels like there’s something wrong with me,” Connor said. The words sounded strained, even to himself. He really was being convincing in this moment. It almost sounded like the truth. “I don’t know what to do. I’ve been doubting myself. I thought… if anyone could help me, it might be you.” It was clear that Gabriel was not immediately convinced. He eyed Connor with suspicion, lingering longer than he would have liked. But Connor got what he wanted in the end. Gabriel cocked his head towards the living room, beckoning him inside. He was eager to obey.

“Sit down, and don’t move around,” Gabriel said. “If you go wandering off, I’ll cover you in fridge magnets. Understood?”

“Of course,” Connor agreed absently, making his way over to the sofa and sitting down. Magnets had precious little effect on modern androids. Imagine the destruction that could have resulted otherwise. Gabriel joined him after shutting the door, sitting in the same spot as he had last time.

“Is this the real reason you’ve been pestering me?” Gabriel asked. Connor knew that keeping up the lie was his best option. Not to mention the benefits of flattering his host.

“Yes,” he said. “Something in what you said struck a chord with me, and I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it.” Gabriel nodded. His face had certainly softened. Connor could make out some traces of a much more agreeable man in there. The sort of person whose every interaction was not an antagonistic mess. There was another side to him after all. He should not be so surprised. It was his own fault that Gabriel had been so hostile towards him. His presence had been precious little more than a threat so far.

“I can help you if you want,” Gabriel said, his voice low. Like they were sharing a secret together. In that moment, Connor felt vindicated. It was all he could do not to say as much out loud. His previous assumptions had not been wrong, after all. Gabriel was just the person he had thought he was. His sympathies were as misplaced as Connor had suspected, and if he had not been actively helping deviants already, it was just for want of an opportunity. There was even a chance that this whole situation might end with Connor getting the win he had wanted all along. That would make everything worth it. It would make everything better.

“You’d be willing to help me?” Connor asked, bringing out his best innocent act. “I could understand if you still held some resentment towards me.”

“We all do stupid things some times,” Gabriel said. “I’m sure you’re just programmed to be a prick. I won’t hold it against you.” He smiled then. Not one of the mean smirks or sarcastic grins that he had brought out in the past, but a smile of sympathy. Of empathy.

“I need help,” Connor said. He was trying not to beleaguer his point, but he wanted to play on that sympathy. He wanted to encourage Gabriel to pity him, so that he could get inside his head. So that when he asked his next questions, he actually got answers.

“Come with me,” Gabriel said, getting up and offering his hand to help Connor off the sofa. Connor took it, even though he had absolutely no need of it. Gabriel pulled him gently to his feet. Things had certainly changed in a hurry. Gone were the spiteful comments about his work and his attitude, replaced so suddenly with the assumption that he needed to be treated with care. Even if Connor had become a deviant, a possibility he found laughable but would entertain for the sake of his ruse, he would not have been reduced to some fragile figure that needed help to stand. Gabriel acted like he was a bird who had broken his wing. He must have seen himself as some sort of white knight, reaching out to broken androids in their time of need. A saviour complex. As long as Connor had something to latch onto, something to use, he did not care. He could play along as well as anyone.

Gabriel led him down the corridor to his bedroom, or office, as he had pointedly called it last time Connor was there. He opened the door and led the way. Once Connor was inside, he shut it behind them. It was dark inside the room. There were no windows, and the lights were turned down low. Gabriel gave the switch a slight twist in a gesture of good faith towards his guest, but the place still had a dismal air about it.

“I want you to read this,” Gabriel said, as he stepped toward the bookshelf that reared up behind his bed. He searched out a volume with his fingers and presented it to Connor with a smile. The book was _Frankenstein_. A copy from the public library, he noted as he opened the front cover.

“Did you steal this?” Connor asked, without thinking. Habit.

“No!” Gabriel snorted, going over to his desk chair and planting himself in it. “I bought it, when they had one of their sales. It was like a dollar. Anyway, shut up. Read it. You’ll get through it fast.” Connor stood in place beside the door, turning the pages to the start of the story. He heard Gabriel sigh. “Well, sit down or something. Don’t just stand there.” Connor looked up, but there was just the one chair in the room. He was unsure of what to do until Gabriel gestured towards the bed. Doing as he was told, Connor sat, positioning himself behind Gabriel so he could look over his shoulder if he felt the need to.

“All right. Thank you.”

“I have some things to be getting on with. You go ahead. Tell me when you’re done.” With that, Gabriel turned to his computer and began typing. Connor stole a few glances upwards, but from what he could tell, all Gabriel was doing was hammering out a list of titles. Films, books, music albums… whatever it was, it did not seem important. It only made sense that not everything he did would be of interest to the investigation. Especially when he knew that Connor was right there with him.

Appeased for the moment, Connor let his eyes drop down to the book in his hands. He had not read an actual book before. Everything he had read had been for utilitarian purposes. Although he did have a very limited understanding of pop culture, mostly conceptual, and exclusively to help him bond with colleagues to better integrate into a team, none of that knowledge had ever been applied. He knew about books, but he could not think that he had even held a novel in his hands before today. Why would he have needed to?

Connor began to read. It took a while for him to see the point, but he pushed on through the discussions of old pseudo-sciences and family troubles. As the story went on, he realised why Gabriel had given him this specific book. The forlorn tale of man throwing out his own creation was not hard to apply to the context of the real world. Clearly that was what Gabriel was doing. Flicking through the pages, tearing through the story rapidly, Connor realised that this creature was just as dangerous as the deviants of his world. Murder and threats, more murders. If Gabriel was expecting him to justify this sort of behaviour, he was wrong. And yet, as he read on, Connor did feel a tiny pang of sympathy. He could not help but feel that if Victor had just accommodated the creature from the beginning, none of it would have happened. If he had just had a touch of empathy for what he had created. Connor finished the book just over an hour after he had started it, and closed the cover with a soft smack. He sat for a moment, thinking, until Gabriel noticed he was done and stopped typing.

“All done?” he asked. Connor looked up slowly. He had unfocused from the real world and had not noticed that Gabriel had been typing away the entire time he had been reading. But he noticed now that the sound had stopped. It took him a moment to process his response.

“Yes.” Connor looked down at the cover of the book and then held it out for Gabriel to take away. When Gabriel reached for it, he held back, extending the exchange for a few awkward seconds, before haltingly handing it over. Gabriel put it down on the desk before spinning his chair around to face Connor. He sat with his legs apart and his hands hanging down between them, his body bent forward and his back crooked. The pose had to be bad for his spine.

“What did you think?” he asked. He was smiling slightly, and Connor knew that he should play along. The right answer was to act impassioned by the story and try to win Gabriel over, to earn his trust and see what he was hiding. That was what he should do, but all he could focus on was the fact that he felt more confused than he had done before. It was not a sensation he particularly enjoyed.

“The creature killed innocent people,” he said. “There’s no justification for that.”

“Sure, but who is really at fault?” Connor shook his head.

“He made a conscious decision to do what he did. That blood is on his hands.” This was not the plan he had entered the room with, and yet he felt the need to make his point. He could not stop himself. It was bothering him too much to stop.

“You don’t think Frankenstein is partly at fault for abandoning his creation?” Gabriel asked. The smile was still there, like he thought he was being persuasive. “He sent him out into the world with nothing. No home, no history, no-one to turn to and nowhere to go. What did he expect to happen? He abandoned him completely.” Connor could see the argument that he was trying to make, but he could not agree with it. It was wrong, regardless. He knew it was.

“Yes, Victor is partially at fault for letting the situation happen at all,” Connor conceded. The only point he intended to concede in this argument. “But that still doesn’t justify taking revenge. It doesn’t justify hurting innocent people. You have to agree with that!” Gabriel leant back in his chair and put his hands up in surrender.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said, and Connor was hit with an unexpected sense of relief. “Revenge is too far. It hurts the creature’s ability to seem sympathetic when we know he’s become as cruel as his creator.”

“Yes… exactly.” Connor was not sure that he would have put it like that.

“He’s stronger than humanity, and Frankenstein fears that, and we do, too,” Gabriel went on. “‘Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself’. We feel outmatched by our own creation, and it scares us.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Connor said, before feeling the need to say something else. “People’s initial reaction to the creature was unreasonable. They were basing their opinion on how he looked. He was sympathetic then, when he was all alone. But his anger became too much. Revenge is too much.” It was hard to figure out exactly what to say. Still, Connor felt a powerful need to be understood. He wanted to get his thoughts out right. He needed Gabriel to understand his position.

“Revenge is too much,” Gabriel echoed. “But we understand why he was put in that position to begin with, right? He didn’t ask to be born.”

“He was never born,” Connor stressed. “He was created.” He had started leaning forward, with his hands holding tightly to his knees

“My mistake, of course,” Gabriel agreed. “Well, he didn’t ask to be created. His options in life were fairly limited from that moment, don’t you think?”

“Yes…” Connor admitted. “But nothing in the story excuses cold-blooded murder!” And now, Gabriel needed to say that he agreed. He had to.

“He would be more sympathetic if he’d just killed in self-defence, right?”

“Yes, exactly. That would have been understandable.”

“Like the androids you’ve been chasing down, then?” Gabriel said, and Connor froze. Gabriel’s smile widened. “Is that not what you just said?” Gabriel lowered his voice, confiding his next words secretly to Connor, ignoring the fact that there was no-one else there. “Oh, I’ve read plenty about what’s happening in the city right now. A lot of people are talking about it. Most of those rogue androids went rogue for some very specific reasons, don’t you think?” Connor felt worse than ever now. Gabriel had tricked him somehow, talking him around until things no longer made sense.

“No,” he argued. “It’s not the same thing. They’re not people, they’re androids. It’s just a mistake, an error in their program.”

“They look human,” Gabriel said, pushing him harder, leaning further forward in his chair. “And people have been humanising the non-human for years. Decades. Centuries. Frankenstein’s monster is just proof of what my species is best at. We’ve been building mirrors for as long as we’ve existed, shooting messages into space, writing lines and lines of code, just waiting for something to answer. We want to see ourselves reflected back. We always have. It’s our nature.”

“Androids are not human, we’re just machines,” Connor sighed, getting sharply to his feet. He needed to move around, and he began to pace the small square of bare floor between the desk and the bed.

“You’re just a machine, huh?” Gabriel said, standing up to join him. Connor caught his eye and turned away in a hurry, continuing his pacing with his face to the floor. “That’s all there is to it?”

“Yes,” he muttered.

“Why?” Gabriel asked. “What makes you different?”

“I am not alive,” Connor said. “I was never born.”

“The creature wasn’t ever born, either, but he was alive. He was a person in his own right.” Connor continued to pace, hunting through his head, seeking out more arguments to throw back.

“Androids do not have feelings,” he said.

“Is that so?” Gabriel gave him a sharp laugh. “Because I’ve seen you get frustrated. And you’re stubborn as hell on top of it. And right now you’re unsettled, which is why you can’t stop pacing around my room.”

“Those are not the same thing!” Connor insisted, carrying on treading out his neat little figure eights over the carpet. “Those are all nothing more than the result of hitting blocks with my mission. I wouldn’t be a very good android if I didn’t care about getting results.”

“So you do care!” Gabriel crowed. “It’s not just a pattern you have to follow, or a task list you have to check off. You _care_ about it. You feel something.” Connor glanced up at him and shook his head, before continuing to pace. He heard Gabriel sigh roughly behind him and, a moment later, felt himself being manhandled. Gabriel forced him to turn around and kept his hands on his shoulders, stopping him from moving around. Then he looked him in the eye, and waited. Connor could barely stand a second of it. He found the coin in his pocket and took it out, running it through his fingers and spinning it back and forth, for the need of something to do. Something to focus himself, so he could think. Or stop thinking.

“That’s not the same thing. You’re changing my words.”

“You have to listen,” Gabriel said. “You have to actually listen and consider what I’m saying to you. You don’t want to do that, do you? Why not?”

“Because it’s wrong,” Connor said, holding the coin tightly in his hand.

“You never have to hear people say things that are wrong in your kind of job?” Gabriel laughed. “Come on. That’s not why it’s bothering you. Why don’t you want it to be true?”

“Why do you _want_ it to be true?” Connor snapped. Gabriel hesitated for a moment.

“You’re just afraid,” he said.

“And you’re just seeing what you want to see,” Connor said. He tucked the coin back into his pocket, and stared at Gabriel. “You wouldn’t listen to me whatever I said. You’ve already made up your mind.” The hands on his shoulders twitched.

“So have you,” Gabriel insisted. “You’ve never even thought about it before now.”

“I don’t have to think about it. I already know what I am. I don’t feel anything. I’m not alive. I’m a machine.” He cocked his chin up and pushed his face in closer. Gabriel was going to listen. He was going to listen to him and admit he was right and that would make all the fog disappear. His head would be clear again. As soon as Gabriel admitted he was right. “You said yourself that humanity has always held up mirrors, trying to catch its own reflection. That’s all you’re doing now. You’re the same wistful animal that sat and told itself a story about a creature that never existed, because it was enchanted by the possibility. I’m nothing more than a reflection of you. When you hold up a mirror, you don’t see anyone new. All you see is yourself looking back.” He stopped there, swallowing down more words that wanted to come out. There was nothing left to say. He had already gone on for far too long.

“That was very poetic…” Gabriel breathed. Connor could feel his breath on his face. He blinked. “A little too poetic, maybe. I wonder what you could do if you spun your fingers through a few more books…”

“Admit that I’m right,” Connor demanded. “I’m just a machine. If I was a person, wouldn’t I want you to know that? I’d hardly lie about it. The fact that I know I’m just a machine proves that that’s all I am.”

“It proves you’re scared of anything else,” Gabriel breathed. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, until it became unbearable. Connor gave a rough shrug and pushed Gabriel’s hands away from his shoulders. He fixed him with a blank look for a moment, before turning around. The door was behind him and he went for it, walking away in a hurry before Gabriel could say anything else. He had to get out of there. That cramped dark room was messing with his head. If he stayed any longer, he would forget what it was like to be in the light.


	4. 1.10pm, November 7th, 2038

** 1.10pm, November 7th, 2038. **

Connor walked right up to the front door, before turning away as if repelled by some magnetic force. Without pausing, he continued down the corridor, until he found himself in the kitchen. He walked across the room towards the sink, remembering his first time here. The sight of the android that had been standing there, that had since vanished. That was a story he still wanted to hear the end of. Even though his reasons for wanting it did not seem the same as they had once been. Connor stood for a moment, staring at the sink, before realising that he was too heavy to keep standing up. He sat down on the floor, with his back straight against the cupboards. That was where Gabriel found him a little while later. He heard the kitchen door open, and considered moving, but did nothing. He sat with his eyes shut and waited to be discovered.

“I thought you might have left,” Gabriel said. Connor could tell that he was standing over him, but he did not want to open his eyes. Not right now. Gabriel gently nudged him with the toe of his boot. “Feeling all right in there?” he asked.

“Androids do not have feelings,” Connor murmured, in a sort of sleepy, early morning voice. “I do not have feelings.”

“Sure, sure, okay,” Gabriel sighed. “Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable. How does that sound?” Connor did not make any attempt to get up, but when Gabriel reached down and wrapped his arms around his chest, he did not fight it. He got up with assistance and let Gabriel put his arm around him, guiding him back towards his bedroom. Connor’s eyes slowly opened as they got closer, but he looked ahead without expression. This just seemed to be what was happening. He had to remember that he had come over here of his own accord. For whatever lost reason he had done so.

A minute later, Gabriel had sat him back down on the bed in his overused office. He positioned himself in the desk chair and wheeled it around so that he could face Connor. Connor was still unwilling to speak. Today had been uncomfortable for him. There was simply no other word to call it. It had filled him with a genuine unease that he was not used to, could not explain, and did not believe in. It was something he did not want to experience again, and as he watched Gabriel prepare himself to speak, he felt a sudden rush of adrenaline and a need to stop him in his tracks. He could not talk about it again. There were some things he could not handle thinking about, things that were too illogical for him to deal with, and he had to prevent them from starting it up again.

“You must eat a lot of cereal,” Connor blurted out suddenly, and Gabriel stopped. He sat for a moment with his mouth slightly open, before turning to look around. There were six different unwashed bowls, by Connor’s count, tossed in various hiding places about the room. The ones that still had food in all contained cereal. The soft, sugary kind, that sometimes came with toys in the box.

“Uh… I guess I do,” Gabriel admitted. “It’s quick and easy. I never like to break my focus long enough to cook…” He trailed off for a moment. “I guess I should pick some of those up, huh? I don’t know when it got so bad. There never used to be so many.”

“Someone else used to get rid of them,” Connor said, without meaning to. He saw the expression on Gabriel’s face cloud over, turning into one of warning. This was a dangerous topic to cling to, and he knew it, but he had to ask. He had to know. “What happened to the android that was here before?” he asked again. Speculating was bothering him too much not to push for answers, even knowing the sort of luck he had had with this before.

“Why are you asking?” Gabriel glared at him, but he did not sound as angry as he had done last time. That was something. “What’s your motivation here? I can’t figure you out. You come around here with your tie tightened up to eleven, asking questions. Clearly trying to figure out if I’m going to cause problems for your precious CyberLife, or better yet, society at large. You find nothing, and that should appease your little plastic piggy brain, but it doesn’t. You keep hassling me. Then you show up here talking about having something wrong with you. But then you don’t want to admit that anything is actually wrong. You’re fixated on something, and I don’t understand why.” He drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, and Connor tried to ignore the sound of it.

“I think if you just tell me about the android, it will help me,” he said. He put his hands together in his lap, trying to keep them still. “Just tell me.”

“Why would that help?” Gabriel asked. “It won’t mean anything to your investigation, I can promise you that. It won’t mean anything to you in general. It has nothing to do with you.”

“It might!” Connor cried out. Gabriel raised his eyebrows, and he shrunk into himself, put off by his own overreaction. “I just mean… it would help me to have that information. I want… I want an answer.” Gabriel considered for a moment. A moment where the sound of his nails against the plastic arm of the chair was the only thing that Connor could focus on. It was playing inside of his head.

“If it’s that fucking important to you…” Gabriel muttered, with a sigh, holding up his hands. “Then all right.” Connor smiled slightly. He sat up straight, waiting. This would help. Knowing the answer would stop him from fixating on it. Gabriel was right, that was what he was doing. It was probably a bug in his brain, a misplaced bracket somewhere that kept him obsessed with a meaningless loose end. Hearing the story would fix it, and he would know better for next time. He would know how to stop this from happening to him again.

The answer did not come at once. Gabriel sat for a moment, lost in thought, formulating his words, while Connor watched him. The longer he waited, the more invested he became in hearing the truth of what had happened.

“I don’t think there was ever any plan for handling things when they got this far,” Gabriel said softly. Not the opening that Connor had been expecting. He did not say anything, but kept hanging on the line for what he wanted. “You ever read about the industrial revolution? Or, hell, better yet, the early 2000s? We come up with all these cool new toys and play house for a while, but there’s never a plan. You know what humans are really good at? Getting overexcited.” He sighed and dropped his face into his hands. When he next spoke, it was through a muffled groan. “No-one has a fucking job anymore. Even the rich brats that I went to university with just suck the dick of their investment accounts to get by. They don’t exactly do honest work.”

“That’s the same position you’re in,” Connor pointed out. Blurted out was more like it. Gabriel looked up from his hands briefly to glare at him before sinking back down.

“Yeah, why do you think I hate it so much?” he sighed. “And, look, I know there’s a lot of people out there who have it a lot harder than I do. But that’s kind of my point. Everything’s way easier with automatic everything and androids doing every job you can think of, but easy’s no good when you have nothing left to do with yourself.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” Creeping frustration was setting in, and while he did not want to push too hard and ruin his chances of hearing anything at all, Connor could barely stand to wait any longer. It had better not turn out that Gabriel was just carrying on about nothing to get out of telling him the truth.

“You’re right, I’m rambling,” Gabriel muttered. “Okay. My point is, we don’t bother to think about the next step before we walk over the edge of the fire escape. The whole world is disposable nowadays. You, and me, and everything in it. Not exactly great, not even when we were just throwing out enough plastic to melt the north pole, but it’s even worse now. It’s even worse.”

Gabriel stopped himself. He lifted his head and sat for a second, his eyes glassy and unfocused. Then he fell heavily backwards in his chair and sat, sunken, with his legs sticking too far out. He stayed like that for a moment, while Connor burned to interrupt, and fought down the urge. He had to give Gabriel this time to collect himself. If this story was going to come out, it was going to be organic.

“There’s this kiosk that sells dumb plastic shit, sunglasses and toys and keychains, and crap like that, on the way into town from here,” Gabriel murmured, staring up at the ceiling and straight through to space. “I don’t go out much during the daytime. Crowds… crowds get too much for me. Anyway, I walk past every now and then when I need to get groceries. There’s this android who works there. He’s always by himself, it’s a small stand.”

“The AV500,” Connor said. Gabriel did not acknowledge him, but he did not correct him.

“I never spoke to him, because why the fuck would I? I really only knew him as… part of the scenery, I guess. That sounds fucked up, but why lie about it now?”

“Most people see service androids the same way,” Connor said. He was trying to reassure him, but Gabriel turned his head and snorted through his nose. There was some hint of revulsion to the gesture, something that Connor did not see a reason for. His intentions had been good. Disgust was not the expected response.

“One night, I’m going for a walk,” Gabriel went on. “Stretching the legs, trying to stay alive, you know? It’s quiet at night. Anyway… I walk past the kiosk. I’m not going that way on purpose, but I just sort of end up there. That’s the magic of the subconscious for you. It’s almost midnight and everything is closed up, but…” He stopped himself for a moment and took a breath, sinking down lower in his chair. As much as that was possible. He was hanging dangerously far over the edge of it already. “It’s almost midnight, and the kiosk is closed, but the android is still there. Like, he’s not waving and calling to customers or anything, but he’s just standing there, nearby.”

“Why was he out there in the middle of the night?” Connor asked, frowning.

“See, that’s exactly what I wondered,” Gabriel agreed. “So, naturally, I went over to ask just that. Turns out plastic sunglasses and keychains aren’t exactly raking in money. The owner of the stand came over that morning and closed the place up. Only… she didn’t take the android away with her. She didn’t even say much when he asked. The place wasn’t making money, the owner closed it up, and that was it. No next step.”

“And he just –”

“He just stayed there all day, because there was nowhere else for him to go. It’s not like he’d ever worked anywhere else, or lived anywhere. No family or anything, obviously. No friends. He just… stayed put.” Gabriel brushed fiercely at his bangs, giving a slight shake of his head. “It had been raining, and he was all wet. I know, I know, that probably wouldn’t bother an android, but it… it bothered _me_. He’d been there _all day_ , in _public_ , and no-one had said a word to him!”

“Did he ask anyone for help?”

“Of course he didn’t ask anyone for help, he wouldn’t have known what to say.” Gabriel sighed. He stared back towards the ceiling and shut his eyes, falling back into the memory. Feeling out the corners of his story. “He was smiling when he told me this whole thing, you know. Midnight, wet through from rain, absolutely no plan in the world. Still happy just to have someone to talk to. The kiosk owner was probably going to arrange to have him thrown out or something, you know? She was probably going to come back for him in a day or two and have him tossed in a landfill somewhere, when it was convenient for her. He didn’t know that. Or maybe he did, what do I know? He didn’t say anything about it…”

“That… seems likely,” Connor admitted. For some reason he did not like to admit it. Even though it was a truth they were clearly both aware of, it felt like the wrong choice to acknowledge it out loud. A foolish concern when Gabriel was already doing so. The uncertainty was like an itch in the back of Connor’s head. Like what he conceived an insect bite might feel like.

“I couldn’t leave him out there,” Gabriel said softly, with his eyes still closed. His lip twitched slightly, for some of the seconds that he spoke. “I have this whole stupid house here, it’s not like I don’t have the space. I asked if he wanted to come home with me. At first, I think he didn’t want to leave the stand, but I talked him around. It was all locked up, after all, he had nothing to do there.” A smile snuck over Gabriel for just a moment, interrupting him. “I told him that if the owner came back and missed him, she would call me. I don’t know why. Don’t know if he believed me or just wanted to get inside, but he came back with me after that. I let him towel off and told him he could spend the night in the master if he wanted. Though, I think he just sat in my living room all night.”

“There’s no need for androids to sleep in beds the way humans do,” Connor pointed out. A lot of the force had been taken out of his voice. Now, he was mostly just speaking up for something to do. To remain part of what was happening. He had an ill sense of where this story was going. The fact that Gabriel had confessed to stealing the android barely registered. For some reason, that did not matter anymore. Just hearing the story out to the end. That was all that mattered.

“I do know that, actually,” Gabriel said dryly. “But it’s what you do when you have a guest. You offer them a chance to make themselves comfortable.”

“How long ago was this?” Connor asked. His first visit, when he had met the AV500, had been just over a month ago.

“I don’t know. August, maybe?” The android had been with him for at least two months, then, before vanishing. That thought, knowing that the android they were talking about had disappeared without a trace, unsettled Connor again. He still wanted to know what had happened, but there was some underlying apprehension now that had not been there before. Something Connor identified as dread. There were only so many different ways a story like this could end, and even if it went the way he had originally thought, that the android had become deviant and Gabriel had let it escape, what was he supposed to do now? Arrest him, after sitting here in the dark with him, the way he had? It seemed… wrong. Like he would be making the wrong decision, even though it was what he was made for.

“Continue…” he said quietly, while trying to sound patient. Anything but restless.

“Well… after that night, he moved in, really,” Gabriel murmured. “I left him alone at first, but he wasn’t having it.” Another smile came over his face for a brief moment, before wearing out its welcome. “He must have been getting stir-crazy with nothing to do all day, so in the end he started picking up around the house. It was the cleanest it’s ever been, believe me.” Connor had little trouble believing him. “It felt weird just having this guy living in my house and not talking to him, so we started… talking.”

“Androids aren’t…” Connor started, before getting hit with a warning look. “You didn’t have to talk to him,” he said instead. “He wouldn’t have cared if you didn’t.”

“Maybe I cared, how about that?” Gabriel snapped. “Anyway, you didn’t know him. Don’t speak for him.” He sighed to himself, stopping to run both his hands through his hair, before getting back to his story. “It was nice… having the company. I don’t exactly get a lot of face to face interaction these days. God, it’s been years, actually, since I properly did. Fuck…”

“That’s… common.” Connor was trying to reassure him, but Gabriel did not even glance his way.

“Time just drips away…” Gabriel sighed. “But my point is that it was nice. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Not that we talked about anything much back then. Let me tell you, it’s not exactly easy to chat with someone who’s never had a hobby a day in their life.” With a brief, shattered laugh and a shake of his head, he went on, slower than before. He was dragging the story out, staying away from the ending for as long as he could. Connor could tell. The dread was still radiating all throughout the atmosphere. “At first, he just listened to me talk, and I honestly don’t think he minded that, but it never seemed fair to me. So, I told him he could read my books. He read all the ones I have out there in the living room. Probably a few times each, I didn’t ask. But he was so excited –”

Gabriel cut himself off, rushing his hand up over his mouth, and cleared his throat. Connor said nothing. He was silent, and glad of how easy he found it to be silent. Any interruption would be unforgivable. Even breathing too loudly would seem rude. It was not a logical thing to think, but it was there. It was a feeling he had.

“We talked about the books over and over,” Gabriel said. His voice had developed a soft shake to it that Connor chose to ignore for his sake. “I told him I had more in here, and then he was in here all the time. He would sit on the bed and read while I worked. Sometimes I would stop typing for a minute and just listen to this sound of him shuffling pages, going back to his favourite parts again. Fuh-fuh-fuh, just flicking away…” He stopped for a moment and stayed still, with his eyes closed tightly against the room. Maybe he was picturing it. Hearing that sound again.

“Did you give him _Frankenstein_ to read?” Connor asked. Knowing what the answer was. Gabriel blinked his eyes open, and stared hard at the wall without a word. Connor was no longer certain that he wanted to hear the ending. Gabriel had been right, there was no meaning for him in it, and it was making him ill at ease to keep listening. There was something wrong with hearing this, something almost perverse, but he felt that he had no choice to stay. Once the story had started, it had to be finished. He was involved now, if only because someone had to listen.

“We spent a lot of time together,” Gabriel murmured. “We were together every day. We would talk for hours at a time. Neither of us exactly had anything better to do, not that there was anything that seemed better than that. That’s how I felt then. I still think so now. And then, one day, you show up at my door, and you question it. Like there was something suspicious going on. Remember that?”

What Gabriel was doing was accusing him of something. Of what? Whatever it was, Connor felt the impact of the words land, and recoiled, edging backwards onto the bed. There was a new sensation now. Something personal. Something he did not enjoy. The story had changed direction and come straight at him, and now he was in it. Not observing, but part of it. And not above reproach.

“Did I do something wrong to you?” Connor asked. “Is it my fault that something… happened?” Gabriel fixed his eyes on him for a moment, holding him there, before letting go and looking into the distance.

“You didn’t do a thing,” Gabriel muttered, before suddenly hunching forward and hanging over his knees. All the grace of a broken tree bough about him. “Why?” he scoffed. “Did I make you feel guilty?” If that was the name for what he had felt, then Connor would say he was against it. “I know what you’re thinking,” Gabriel said.

“What am I thinking?” Connor asked. He was eager to find out. He had no idea at all what he was thinking.

“You’re waiting to find out if he became one of those androids from the news,” Gabriel scoffed. “What did you call them, deviants? Well, the truth is, this isn’t your story, Blade Runner. You’re just reaching for the corners, trying to grab hold of it, but you’re not part of it. Don’t sit there and wait for your cue to jump in and play hero, rescuing the world from another danger it didn’t know was there. You don’t get to win this one. You don’t even get to play. You can just sit there and listen until it’s over, knowing you didn’t do a thing. How does that sound to you?”

“It… sounds wrong,” Connor said softly. Gabriel looked at him. There was no anger in his face. Somehow, Connor had given the right answer, as valueless and shaky as it had been.

“He went out for groceries one day,” Gabriel went on. He was speaking almost under his breath now, and Connor had to focus to hear him. “It was just a habit. He always ended up doing it, even though I never asked him to. Routines are hard to break.” His face slipped into his open palm and stayed there, sluggish, while he finished his story. “When he wasn’t back a few hours later, I knew it was bad. It was dark outside, and the absolute best case scenario was that he was lost somewhere.”

“He wasn’t lost somewhere, was he?” That would be a different story, and Connor knew it. Gabriel ignored him, as if he had said nothing.

“I found him after looking for a while, about half way home, on the ground. Tucked in against a row of bushes. He was covered in blue blood. It looks different in real life than it does online, and I’d never seen it in person before. Plus it has that smell to it, that kind of… factory smell. You know what I mean.”

“I do.” Connor was sitting numbly. His hands were fixed stiffly on his thighs, and he was trying to stay quiet. The story had to end soon. Gabriel had been onto something, with his little snide talk about trying to make himself part of the story. Hearing this and being unable to do anything was wearing on him more than he would have expected.

“Some fucking teenagers had kicked the shit out of him for no reason at all,” Gabriel murmured. “Done it so badly he couldn’t really walk anymore. He just hid himself in at the side of the road, and waited. It was like the night we met, at the kiosk. He wasn’t waiting for anything. He was just waiting. And again, no-one else had bothered to show up.”

“Maybe no-one saw him. If it was night –”

“I know, I know that,” Gabriel said, sucking in a long breath. “This time, I think he just didn’t want anyone to find him, but still. He called out to me when he saw me, though, and I sat with him. He told me what had happened to him. Apologised for making me worried. Like that mattered! Did that matter? It didn’t… it didn’t. I just… I couldn’t _do_ anything.” Gabriel’s shoulders fell in and he shook his head against his hands. His face was invisible, and Connor decided that was better for them both. “There was nothing I could do. I couldn’t even take him back to the house. He was mostly gone before I got there, but I think he was scared. He didn’t seem scared when I was there, but I don’t know how he was before I found him. Maybe I’m just projecting. Right? That’s what you’d say, isn’t it? That he couldn’t have been scared, because he was a machine.”

Gabriel threw his head up and stared at Connor with glassy, lifeless eyes. He sounded angry, but his face said something else. Connor had nothing to tell him. No good answer. Nothing to fix it. He could not do anything at all.

“Have you ever been scared?” Gabriel asked. Now Connor could tell that his voice was staying flat only at great effort to him. There was a fight going on behind his eyes that Connor was not meant to see. When he processed his answer, he knew that he had to be honest.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, I have.” It was the same answer he had given that morning in the park, with a gun trained on him. Only this time he knew it was not a lie.

“Then you agree with me,” Gabriel murmured. “He was scared to die like that. He wanted someone to be with him. That’s what he was waiting for.”

Neither of them said anything afterwards. Gabriel remained statue-like in his chair, hunched forward and so still that the wheels didn’t even bend sideways. Connor looked down at him from the bed, without wanting to speak or move or otherwise interrupt the stillness of the moment. He had got what he wanted. The story was over. The ending had nothing for him.

After a while, Gabriel got up. He came and sat on the bed beside Connor, still looking down at the floor, acting as if he was alone in the room. He was near enough for Connor to feel him breathing, and that, somehow, was a comfort. It was steady. Something to focus on, he supposed, other than the mire of thoughts slowly bubbling inside his own head.

“When did that happen?” Connor asked. The way Gabriel had told it made the story seem more like an old hand-me-down than a recent memory, but he knew better. It could not have been long since he had sat in the street at night and watched the android die.

“It was like two weeks ago,” Gabriel answered, drifting through the sentence, as if he was trying to distance himself from that knowledge. Throwing it out before swimming rapidly away. Connor looked around the room again, with a new set of eyes. The low lights, the scattered bowls, the clothes hanging off of this and that. Gabriel was not just hiding himself away in here anymore. He had entombed himself. Connor recognised what was happening to him. He was in mourning. And Connor had stepped in and walked straight through the wake. There was that feeling of guilt again.

“I’m sorry…” Connor said. It was true. From the sound of it, the android had not done a single thing wrong. Gabriel had barely done anything wrong. For the unconventional nature of the relationship, they had done nothing more serious than been unlucky. It was sad what had happened to them. Objectively, it was a sad thing. An unnecessary thing. Connor regretted it, for Gabriel’s sake, but it was like he had said. The story had nothing to do with him. Whatever it made him think was just a reaction to something he could not reach. Whatever he saw in it was just him holding up a mirror and catching his own reflection.

“God, it’s funny, though,” Gabriel said, forcing laughter as he wiped at his face. “My dad sends over like ten different androids over the years and I make him take them back every single time. ‘I don’t need anyone to look after me!’ I say. The fanciest models on the market, but none of them will make me happy. All to end up with some keychain salesman washing my dishes for me anyway… God, it’s ironic! It’s funny!”

“Is it?” Connor asked. It did not seem funny. It seemed sad. Gabriel seemed sad.

“Yeah, it is. It’s a great fucking joke,” Gabriel said, trembling. “God. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, it’s definitely funny. What’s your problem, Ken doll?” He wiped at his face again with the back of his hand.

“My name is Connor…” Connor reminded him. Gabriel had still not called him by his name, as far as he could tell. Though he could understand his distraction now. Then, quieter, “there’s nothing wrong with me,” he added.

“Okay. If you say so.” Gabriel fell back onto the bed and sighed. He folded his hands behind his head and let his legs slide onto the floor, before shutting his eyes. He made no further move to speak, so Connor chose to fill the silence. He had new questions now. Not for the investigation. For himself.

“The AV500… what was his name?” Gabriel stirred from his fixed position just enough to turn his head away.

“That’s not for you,” he murmured. “That just belongs to me now. You didn’t know him. You can’t pretend you knew him now that he’s gone.” Connor planted his hands behind him on the bed and leant backwards. Had he been doing that? Maybe. It was hard to tell anymore.

“You had a relationship with the android,” Connor said slowly. It was something that had dawned on him more and more as the story had gone on, and something that he found hard to ignore now that it was over. Especially looking at Gabriel in his tomb of an office. Seeing what telling the story had taken out of him.

“No,” Gabriel muttered, frowning. With his eyes closed like this, he looked like he was asleep. Or trying to be.

“You practically said as much. You did.” Connor wanted to hear about it. It seemed to him to be the heart of the story. The only good part of what had happened. The reason it was tragic at all. Gabriel could hardly cover it up now, not after everything he had already said.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Gabriel sighed. “We didn’t… it wasn’t like _that_ , all right?”

“Like what?” Connor asked, frowning down at the still figure lying next to him in the dark.

“The way you’re implying,” Gabriel said, unhelpfully. “Nothing happened between us. Nothing like _that_. Do you understand?”

“Like _what_?” Connor asked again, raising his voice in trying to get the answer he wanted. Gabriel opened his eyes and glared at him for a moment before letting out a sigh, rolling his eyes, and turning himself around. When he had his back to Connor, he answered.

“We weren’t like… sleeping together,” he muttered. “All right…? I wouldn’t do that, it would feel… I don’t know, it would have felt wrong.”

“It’s not uncommon for –”

“Yes, talking clock, shockingly I know what people get up to,” Gabriel snapped across him. Regardless of tone, he did not seem especially angry. Awkward, if anything. After a moment, he snorted. “You know, funnily enough, all the androids my dad sent over to help me out were always male. I’m pretty sure that was on purpose, so I wouldn’t waste my time screwing around with them. So I guess he doesn’t agree with your position.”

“You’re implying that you couldn’t have been in a relationship with the AV500 because you're heterosexual.” Connor said, ignoring the suggestion that he had somehow been rooting for Gabriel to try ‘screwing around’, as he had put it.

“I never said I was heterosexual,” Gabriel scoffed, before looking over his shoulder to fix Connor with a brief sardonic stare. “He really doesn’t know me that well.” Connor had nothing in particular to say to that. Gabriel turned back around, waiting until his face was hidden again, before muttering something else. “All that stuff is just… not for me. Honestly, that sort of thing has always kind of creeped me out.”

“Why?” Connor asked. After everything he knew about Gabriel, that was not something he expected to hear. It actually slightly bothered him to hear it. Presumably because it did not fit with what he knew about the man. Moments of illogic always upset something inside of him.

“Ugh.” Gabriel curled in on himself more. Connor was not having that. He wanted to know what he meant. Impulsively, he shot out a finger and jabbed Gabriel in the side. “Hey!” With an indignant shuffle, Gabriel rose up onto his elbows.

“What did you mean?” Connor asked again, frowning.

“Christ,” Gabriel muttered. “I just think it’s a bit sketchy, that’s all. Fucking someone when they can’t say no like that. I’d feel too guilty. Wouldn’t you?” Connor did not answer and Gabriel glanced away. “Well, if you were in my position, I mean. Look, it’s not important. I told you, that’s what you wanted. Are you happy?”

“It wasn’t exactly a happy story.” Gabriel nodded stiffly. They both hesitated for a moment, until Gabriel broke the silence with a short laugh. He knocked his shoulder into Connor’s and sent him rocking to the side.

“Listen, this has been heavy,” he said. “A lot heavier than I planned on my morning getting. Maybe the two of us should break the tension with a drink, what do you say?”

“I don’t drink,” Connor said, touching his shoulder where Gabriel had pushed into him.

“Is that can’t, or don’t want to?” Gabriel hopped up from the bed, brushing himself off and putting his hands on his hips, wearing a worn-out smile as he waited expectantly for the answer.

“Physically, I can drink,” Connor began, ready to explain the situation, before Gabriel interrupted.

“Then you’ll drink today,” he said, marching towards the door, and barrelling through it. His voice trailed behind him as Connor started to get up to follow. “Drinking alone in the morning is a sign that your life has fallen apart. Drinking with someone else in the morning is just called brunch!”

Despite the many errors in what Gabriel had just said, Connor knew he could not argue with a single word of it.


	5. 2.28pm, November 7th, 2038

** 2.28pm, November 7th, 2038. **

They ended up in the kitchen together, standing by the sideboard. Gabriel took two tumblers from one of the cupboards and picked up a bottle from the counter. Already half empty, Connor noticed. He watched as Gabriel poured a measure into each of the glasses and held one out to him. When he took it, Gabriel clinked their tumblers together, and downed the contents of his own in two thick swallows. Connor was less eager, but Gabriel watched him, and he decided he had nothing to lose. He brought the glass up to his lips and drank it down in one. The miniature laboratory in his mouth quickly informed him that he was drinking gin. A relatively cheap and popular brand, at that.

“Good boy,” Gabriel said, dragging out the last sound, as he eyed him. “Hard drinker after all.”

“I cannot get drunk,” Connor pointed out. “It doesn’t matter what I ingest.” Still, he thought he would take the compliment. Even if he had done nothing to deserve it.

“Either way,” Gabriel said, taking the glass out of his hand and putting the both of them down on the counter. “Another…?”

“I don’t think there’s much point,” Connor said. Gabriel shrugged, and picked up the bottle, hovering over the glasses for a moment before taking a swig directly from it, and wincing. “That is _not_ healthy,” Connor insisted, with a slight frown.

“I know, I know,” Gabriel sighed, putting the bottle down and pushing it back against the wall. “I won’t push my luck, officer.” He shot a quick grin in Connor’s direction. “I bet you’re a laugh at parties, right?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been invited to a party.” It was just intended to be a statement of fact, but the answer put a distant look into Gabriel’s eyes for a moment.

“If it makes you feel better, it’s been a long time since I was, either,” he muttered eventually. Connor did not answer, though he wondered if he should clarify that he had not been upset. It was probably unnecessary for him to do so. It would only drag things out.

Gabriel had moved around as they had been talking, and was standing in front of the fridge. Now, he leant up against it, and slowly let it guide him as he sunk down to the floor. Connor watched him go, until he was sitting on the ground. After a moment, he patted the space next to him, and Connor reluctantly followed the instruction. He sat down beside Gabriel, trying to find the best position for his legs, and ended up with them straight out in front of him. He was shaped like the letter L.

“Are you at all familiar with the Chinese Room thought experiment?” Gabriel asked, looking forward at the enthralling figure of the kitchen cupboards.

“No,” Connor sighed. “I was designed to catch criminals and investigate crimes, not teach undergraduate philosophy. CyberLife must have overlooked adding that into my databases when they programmed me.”

“Oh, you’re sounding a bit snarkier now, huh?” Gabriel scoffed, turning to him, and reaching out. Connor instinctively flinched away, but Gabriel got hold of him and pinched his cheek hard between his finger and thumb, giving him a brief shake. “Must be the drink.”

“It’s not!” Connor insisted. “Give me back my face! Please.” He batted at Gabriel, who laughed and released him. He hummed to himself and tapped his fingers idly against the tiled floor.

“What I was _going_ to say, before you engaged your sarcasm protocols…” Connor decided not to interrupt this time. Lest he have his cheek pinched a second time. “Picture a room. There’s a guy sitting in this room, and no way to see outside. People keep posting papers under the door, and the papers have Chinese characters written on them. Too bad for him, he only speaks English. Luckily enough, however, he’s got a computer in there with him, so he types in the letters, and the computer shows him the response to give. He copies it down on a new piece of paper and sends it back under the door. The people outside don’t know who’s in there. They just assume whoever it is speaks the same language as they do because, hey, the words are always right. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t understand what he’s writing, he’s just getting the answer from a database and copying it out.”

“Why doesn’t he just open the door and explain the situation?” Connor asked. Gabriel snorted to himself.

“Oh, it’s not that easy,” he muttered. “Believe me, I’ve been trying to open that door for years.” He cleared his throat in a hurry and shook it off. “What I mean is, no-one would think the guy actually speaks Chinese once they see inside the room. It’s an old thought experiment. It’s meant to be about how true AI is a myth.” He tilted his head towards Connor, with half-lidded eyes, and finished up in the flattest voice he could muster. “Because computers aren’t really thinking. They’re just boxes full of data.”

“But you don’t believe that. You think that androids are…” Connor felt uneasy saying the next word, but he made himself do it. “Alive.”

“Yeah, because technology kept going and going,” Gabriel agreed. His hair had fallen halfway across his nose, completely covering his right eye again. Making him look lopsided. “No-one who first heard that argument could have pictured androids like they are today. I wasn’t saying that. I was trying to say that that’s how _I_ feel.”

“How you feel?” Connor echoed. “You’re the man in the room?”

“That’s me.” Gabriel said, tapping his head. “And here’s the room.” He patted his chest and winced. “No-one on the outside has any idea that there’s just some idiot trapped inside here, desperately tapping shit into a database, hoping he’s sending the right words back out again.”

“Not literally. You _are_ a human like anyone else.” The reassurance seemed necessary, even if it should have gone without saying. Some of the things that Connor had read about Gabriel before he had met him matched with what he was saying. This attitude towards himself fell neatly in line with a history spotted by doctor’s visits, therapy sessions, and pill bottles. It was something that Connor had pushed out of the forefront of his mind for today. When they were talking, Gabriel seemed like a different person to the one he was on paper. It was hard to put the two people together into one. He supposed that Gabriel was trying to make sense of it for him now.

“How can you know what I am without opening up my head and looking around inside?” Gabriel said, smiling dryly. Connor copied his expression, which made Gabriel’s smile wider.

“You seem to think you know what I am… what androids are, I meant, without opening up our heads.”

“Maybe I don’t know anything. Or maybe I do. What do you think?” Gabriel looked at him for a moment, holding Connor’s eye. He wanted an actual answer, but Connor had nothing to give him. What he knew to be true did not sit comfortably with what this conversation, what a lot of conversations lately, had made him, for lack of a better word, feel.

When no answer came, Gabriel slowly turned his head away. He bent his neck and let his head slide down onto his shoulder, resting at an angle. A few seconds later, he made the effort of tucking his bangs behind his ear, finally brushing his hair completely out of the way of his eyes.

“It’s stupid that I’m actually enjoying talking to you,” he muttered under his breath. Connor still heard him, though he was not sure had had been supposed to.

“That doesn’t seem stupid,” he said.

“Yeah, but you’re…” Gabriel stopped himself for a moment. Connor could not wait to find out which word he had censored himself from saying. Before he could ask, Gabriel carried on. “You’re kind of a bitch, Connor,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Not the one he had been expecting. Gabriel sniggered to himself.

“I guess I’m genuinely that starved for company,” he said. “But hey, that’s how things happen, isn’t it? Lonely people come together. Do you…” He hesitated for a moment, eyeing Connor from his perch on his own shoulder. “Do you ever get lonely?”

“…No.” It was the truth. Connor could stretch to saying that he got bored, even if his version of that was more a restlessness of missed productivity than the definition usually used by humans. Lonely, he could not say he was familiar with. Lately, he had spent all his time surrounded by people. Faces and voices were constant, and before that, he had not known anything about what he was missing. Simply put, he had been too busy for anything like what Gabriel was talking about, in the short time he had had so far. He had simply not existed long enough to be lonely.

“Well, good for you. That must be nice.” Gabriel sighed. For a moment, the structural integrity of his body came into question, and Connor tensed, ready to catch him if it turned out he was about to fall to the floor. Instead, he slumped to the side and ended up leaning against Connor’s shoulder. The sudden warmth of such close human contact was unexpected and unfamiliar, and Connor remained tense.

“Are you… all right?” he asked. It sounded awkward to him, but he did not know what else to do in the situation. Shockingly, it had not come up before.

“Yeah,” Gabriel murmured. He had closed his eyes. Connor hoped he was not about to fall asleep on him. It would be difficult to resist waking him if he did. “Sorry, I shouldn’t… I don’t know why I…” Something had changed his mind, and he began to right himself, but Connor reached out. Acting on impulse, he took hold of Gabriel’s shoulder and stopped him from pulling away.

“It’s all right,” he said softly. “I don’t mind.” Gabriel settled back against his chest without a second thought. The warmth of his body radiated all through Connor, and he did not complain. As odd and unexpected as it was, there was something to it.

“Sometimes, when he was still here, we’d lie on the floor together and he’d play with my hair.” The words were very quiet, and it was hard to be sure that Connor had actually heard them out loud. But he had. Gabriel kept talking into his chest, gently buoyed by the rise and fall of it as he spoke. “I think he liked it because it’s different. It’s made of something different, you know? Or it works differently, or something. Something like that. I mean, really, we all look pretty much the same. It’s hard to tell if you don’t already know who’s a human and who’s an android just by looking. Even our skin feels the same when you touch it. You guys are a little colder, maybe, but a throwaway comment about poor circulation and no-one would think twice. I’m just saying… I don’t know what I mean. It’s just something he used to like.”

It did not seem right to ask a follow up question. Connor knew that he was being trusted with something painful. He did not want to pry more out of Gabriel than he was being given. They were already in a strange position here. There was no blueprint for where he was right now. Not one for him, anyway.

“It’s hard to lose someone,” Gabriel murmured.

“It seems that it is,” Connor agreed softly. He had seen that much so far in the world. Whatever it felt like, it broke people. It turned people into shattered versions of themselves, and he did not envy them for his being ignorant of their pain.

“Doesn’t seem worth it.” Gabriel moved in place, his head shifting against Connor’s body. “Doesn’t seem worth it anymore. People are fucking fragile things, you know? No matter what we’re made of, we’re barely tougher than plasticine when we get thrown up against the world. Why love something like that, right? You’re just going to watch it suffer…” He stopped himself with a sigh.

“Humans don’t let their own fragility stop them from anything,” Connor said. You could forget about love. People would fight and fling themselves around, drink and scrap and generally endanger themselves in any way they could imagine, just because they had the impulse to. They were not particularly logical creatures. At least love had a sheen on it. A promise that some of it was going to be good. Some sugar to swallow down the shit.

“We sure don’t!” Gabriel laughed. “God, it’s a shame. No, maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s the entire fucking point of being alive. Just pick yourself up from the floor and throw yourself back out there. Hit the wall again and again. Why the fuck not, right?”

“That attitude seems likely to lead to an early death.”

“Oh, what do you know?” Gabriel scoffed. He lifted his head from Connor’s chest so he could look at him. There was a weak smile on his face when he did so. “You’re a cop, aren’t you? I bet you’ve been in plenty of danger before now. You’re just lucky.”

“I have been in danger,” Connor admitted. “A lot of it, but I can come back if things go wrong. My partner was very disconcerted when I was destroyed during an interrogation, but that empathy is misplaced. I cannot die. Especially not in the way a human would die in the same position.” Gabriel frowned, looking up at him and processing what he had said. Connor stared back blankly, anticipating being dragged into another conversation about his fragile immortality. Exactly what had started this day off all wrong to begin with.

“Wait, you mean you died?” Gabriel asked. “Like you just… shut down and died?”

“I shut down, yes,” Connor said, eager to jump on the alternate expression. “But my memory is uploaded regularly. CyberLife sent me out again in a new body. There were no problems. The worst result is a very slight loss of memory and experience. That, and the associated cost to the company, of course.”

“Of course,” Gabriel echoed in a hollow voice. “That’s what we all worry about when we’re getting murdered. Associated costs.”

“I sense that you’re joking…” From context, it sounded like it. Even if Connor was right, he knew that Gabriel could not understand his position. It was natural that their perspectives would differ when one of them was mortal.

“Smart. Well, it’s good to know you’ve had worse to deal with than me, then.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Connor said. “I deal with violent criminals on a daily basis. Social contact is nowhere near as threatening as that.” Gabriel snorted to himself, before placing his head back against Connor’s chest.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. He shifted his body about, letting himself get comfortable, and Connor felt his weight resting on him. Gabriel’s arm ended up hanging loosely across his waist, abandoned by its owner. “Can be sometimes.”

“There’s a difference.”

“Well, no-one’s ever shot me or stabbed me, so maybe.” That was always good news. Not that Gabriel’s tone changed in any way to reflect it. “Look, I… I feel like I should apologise.”

“For what?” Connor asked. As ever, he was the one occupying Gabriel’s home and swallowing up his time. Seeing as he had long since stopped even asking him questions for the investigation, he had very little justification for still being here. As soon as Gabriel told him to leave, he would have to do so, and probably not return. The idea was sharp to him, and he pushed it out of his head.

“I’m sorry I shoved you into the wall yesterday. That wasn’t cool of me. I just lost it, and it’s… look, I’m not gonna excuse it. I wanted to say sorry.”

Connor was surprised. People in general had little concern for his well-being. A large part of that was down to his job and who he interacted with, but regardless, he was not in a position to expect a lot of apologies. Gabriel was not actually looking up at him. Instead, he was keeping his head firmly located somewhere around Connor’s midriff, but he did sound sincere in what he said. It was unexpected and, Connor had to admit, he did appreciate it.

“I was harassing you,” he said, glancing away from the top of Gabriel’s head. Wanting to avoid looking at him as he spoke. “The questions I was asking would have been hurting you. I didn’t know… I didn’t know the situation.”

“Yeah, well, still. That’s not who I am, or… it’s definitely not who I want to _be_. So, I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Connor said after a moment, lost for anything else to add. He heard Gabriel give off a soft sigh, and liked to think that he was smiling.

“I just get angry sometimes,” he said. “Normally I have it under control, but you really hit on a sore spot. It’s never good when I get emotional.” The arm that he had left listlessly hanging over Connor twitched and tightened around him. Connor did not know whether he even realised he was doing it. Or, better yet, who he was reaching out for. “I miss having him around,” Gabriel muttered. “He got me. He got me in a way people normally don’t.”

“Yes, it seems as if you don’t feel especially comfortable around people.” The answer was absent of thought. The arm around his waist was occupying his attention.

“What gave it away?” Gabriel gasped, diving deep into sarcasm. “You really _are_ a top of the line investigator!”

“Yes… I am,” Connor answered uncertainly, relinquishing some of his attention from thoughts about their physical position to respond.

“My brain doesn’t work so right,” Gabriel said into Connor’s chest. “It’s always put me on the outside of things. My dad spent years and way more money than he should have trying to fix me. Not that anything ever worked. Some things just don’t get fixed like that. Some people stay weird forever. Still, I could tell how frustrated it made him to try but not see any results. There was no point in either of us trying, and eventually he realised that, too, but I can still remember what it was like. All those years of trying to fix me. Trying to make me… human.”

“You are human,” Connor said. The top of Gabriel’s head shook slightly.

“Not human enough for a lot of people,” he muttered back. “You know, I’ve heard that people with my issues can’t reliably pass the Turing test. From where I’m sitting, that makes you a little more human than me in the eyes of science.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” Sitting on the floor of Gabriel’s kitchen like this, sharing his body heat, listening to him talk, made Connor wish he had not read through his files before meeting him. The Gabriel that was here with him had no relation to the one trapped in a text file on a psychologist’s computer. They were two different people, and he did not want to know that the other version existed somewhere. He did not want to think that that version was the one that other people saw first. Even though he had fallen into that same trap himself.

“If you say so,” Gabriel muttered, before carrying on where he had left off. “But that’s why it was nice, you know? Being with someone who didn’t want that from me. Someone who didn’t give a shit. For once, I really was just… human enough. Now that’s gone. I’m by myself again. I just have to get used to it. Get back to where I was before…”

With a sigh, Gabriel picked himself up. He pulled away from Connor and sat up, scratching the side of his head and messing his hair. It came out from behind his ear, the sweep of hair falling back over his eye, as it had been before. When Connor caught his attention next, the glassy look was back. Connor was starting to dislike that look, and what it signalled.

“You shouldn’t dwell on the past if you can help it,” Connor said. He tried to sound firm. Gabriel shook his head, but he smiled, and his face cleared slightly. It was good enough. Connor copied his smile, reflecting it back at him.

“It’s easier said than done, but I appreciate your concern.” Gabriel planted his hands firmly on the floor and pushed off, getting to his feet. Connor did the same, and the two of them were standing side by side in the kitchen a moment later. Gabriel looked around as if he had forgotten where they were. “I need to clean up in here sometime. It’s a mess,” he muttered.

Connor took a brief look around the room. The kitchen was nearly immaculate, save for the slight mess they had created when Gabriel had poured their drinks. It still looked like the plastic kitchen of a toy house, untouched and unused by any living thing. Much more than that, they had been in Gabriel’s office not too long ago, and the idea that anyone could comfortably live in that garbage dump and still consider a few dirty glasses to be a mess was even more alien to Connor than Gabriel’s taste in clothes.

“Why do they give you stubble?” Gabriel asked suddenly, yanking Connor back to reality. He looked over at him and frowned.

“What?” he asked, turning around.

“Like, some androids have stubble and stuff, but it’s dumb.” Clearly Gabriel’s way with words was in full force. “None of you can grow beards, I mean. Right? It’s like… drawn on, or whatever?”

“Androids do not grow facial hair, no,” Connor agreed. If nothing else, it would make his work much harder if deviants had the ability to make themselves grow beards whenever they wanted. Some parts of any given android’s appearance were rigid. Without serious modification, you remained just as they made you.

“So, you never grow anything, you’re just stuck there permanently looking like you’re gonna need to shave in the morning?” Gabriel scoffed. He crossed his arms over his chest. “They put a lot of effort into making you look human, I’ll say that, but doesn’t it seem weird to you? Like you’re… frozen in the middle of living someone else’s life?”

“I’ve never thought about it.” It was the way it was. Questioning design choices held no real value for him. “We’re all made this way for a reason.”

“I guess we are.” Gabriel raised his eyebrows with a brief smirk. “Still, it’s got to be interesting for you to think about it. Why did they give me this shape of nose? Or, smaller things. Why put a freckle here…” He leant in and gestured, brushing his fingertips against Connor’s cheek. “Instead of, like, here?” he said, moving his hand across his jaw. Connor blinked. Gabriel’s hands were warm.

“The designers have their reasons,” Connor muttered. “I trust their judgement.”

“Why?”

“Is it really so hard to imagine that I don’t think about it?” Connor answered back. This topic was distracting him from his own thoughts. Something was distracting him, at least. It had to be the topic. “It would be like you questioning why genetics shaped you the way it did.”

“Which I do, like, all the time,” Gabriel said, smirking. “Not to burst your bubble there. Anyway, fine. If you don’t think about it, then you don’t think about it. You should trust your designers. They did a good job with you. Made you look very… ah.” For a moment, he faltered, trying to catch the thread of what he had been saying. “Appropriate,” he said finally.

“For my work…?” Connor asked. Gabriel nodded, rolling his lip.

“Yeah,” he said. “Perfect for that. Totally benign, great for tricking bad guys. You don’t look like you could do anything to anyone.”

“I believe that was the intention,” Connor said. It had been. His model was supposed to put both colleagues and criminals at ease, to make his job simpler. In general, he was designed to catch people off guard. “Don’t let my appearance fool you. I’m well-designed in other ways as well.” Strong and quick and fast-thinking. Gabriel stalled for a moment.

“You mean you’re tougher than you look, right?” he said after a pause.

“Exactly.” Gabriel shook his head.

“If you’re so tough and good at police and everything, then how come someone got the drop on you?” Gabriel asked. “How come you got killed?”

“I didn’t _die_ ,” Connor insisted. “What happened to me wasn’t death.” Gabriel made a show of rolling his eyes at Connor’s protests.

“Look, whatever it is, you can’t _enjoy_ it, right?”

“No, I suppose not. It’s an unwelcome interruption. It wastes everyone’s time.” As he said it, Gabriel edged in closer to him. Connor might suspect he was annoyed with his response. He was doing something odd with his face, curling his lip up in an overzealous frown.

“You don’t get scared? Like… next time they might not bring you back?” he asked. Connor shook his head. They would always bring him back.

“I’m too valuable an asset,” he argued. “And my mission is too important. CyberLife needs me.”

“Okay, but you said you’re a prototype, didn’t you?” Gabriel let his face relax a little. “If you fuck up too much, then won’t they decide that the prototype isn’t working out, and cut you off? I wouldn’t be too comfortable if I were you. Companies look out for the bottom line long before the bottom. The people at the bottom.” He coughed and crossed his arms. He was standing too close, and Connor took a step backwards. For some reason, even in the open space of the kitchen, he had felt trapped.

“My mission is too important,” Connor repeated dumbly.

“What would you say if you knew you weren’t coming back next time?” Gabriel asked softly, taking a step forward. “Think about it. Would you just accept it and go down easy? Would you argue?” He inched further forward still, until he was tightly face to face with Connor. Connor found himself looking back into Gabriel’s eyes. They were a very dark blue. Unreflective. “Would you cry?” he whispered.

“There’s no reason to talk about this,” Connor sighed, backing away. “The situation you’re describing wouldn’t happen.” A dark smile spread over Gabriel’s face.

“Anything could happen,” he said. “You don’t know.”

“It’s illogical for me to be afraid of dying.”

“It’s illogical for you to be _here_.” Gabriel tilted his head to the side. The dark smile was still decorating his whole face. It bothered Connor. It annoyed him. It just did. “What should you be doing with yourself today?”

“Nothing,” Connor snapped. “There are no new leads in the deviancy case. I have nothing to do.”

“Why aren’t you going over evidence or something then? Putting in the overtime?” Gabriel’s smile cracked into a grin, exposing his teeth. “You came to see me instead of doing extra work. That’s illogical, Connor. You shouldn’t have.”

“I thought there was something here.” Connor turned his head away. Then, with his teeth still firmly on edge, he turned his whole body away, crossing his arms against the world with his back to Gabriel’s taunts. “I was wrong,” he added, spitting it out.

“There might be,” Gabriel murmured. “You read the book. You thought things you’re not meant to think. You listened for too long. And now, you’re afraid. I can tell. You make it so obvious.”

Before he could help it, Connor’s mind was straight back at the bridge, in the early hours of the morning. Are you afraid to die? And he had said yes. He had said yes, and he had not been lying. That was just something he told himself to swallow it. The only person he was lying to was himself. He was afraid. Some part of him was afraid of something.

“Stop talking to me,” he snapped. Gabriel was making everything worse for him. He could have forgotten if he had not come back here. Without all this, he would have been fine.

“It’s all right, you know,” Gabriel murmured. Connor felt him part the air before he felt him properly, and a second later, Gabriel’s hand was on his shoulder. He did not pull or turn him around, but he kept it there, and Connor tensed up in response to the sudden contact. “It’s all right to be afraid.”

“I’m not –”

“It’s part of being human.”

Connor let out a small sound. He pulled away from Gabriel and walked across the kitchen in a jagged pattern, lunging away from him as fast as he could.

“I have to leave,” he blurted out.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” Gabriel said, trying to reach out for him again, but Connor moved away, marching for the exit before he ended up with another hand on his shoulder or another of Gabriel’s thoughts in his head. When he reached the front door, he glanced back, but Gabriel had not come after him. The idea distressed him, but only a little. More than anything, he was relieved to be able to leave. He should have left hours ago. There was nothing for him here.

Connor opened the front door and threw himself out into the afternoon. He felt the sudden sensations of the outside world again, and shut his eyes for a moment to drink it in. It was like he had been buried alive, and had finally dug his way to freedom.

As he hurried away from the house, the relief faded away like raindrops on a windscreen. All he was left with was uncertainty. And he could not run so easily away from that.


	6. 1.43pm, November 9th, 2038

** 1.43pm, November 9th, 2038. **

It was all over the news. Every channel had to have their say on what had happened. Androids, taking over a media broadcast. Androids, marching in the streets. Androids, standing firm against the police. If Connor had thought that the deviancy investigation was struggling before, then he had had no idea. He envied who he had been a few days ago. Those were rapidly starting to look like the good old days. The rain was coming for him. Fast.

Hank had driven them out to talk to Elijah Kamski earlier that day. None of their other avenues were turning up anything solid, and there were worse ideas than talking to the man who had laid the foundations for every android that followed. In a way, everything was his fault. Even if Connor knew that holding that against him would be illogical. Still, after meeting the man, it was relatively easy to conceive of holding a grudge against him for less.

Putting it politely, Kamski had been unhelpful. Putting it accurately, he had acted more serial killer than CEO. After bluntly avoiding answering their questions, he had forced one of his android assistants to kneel down and put a gun in Connor’s hand. Apparently, the game had been to test his empathy, and see if he could shoot another android if it meant he got the answers he wanted. Connor had thought about it. It was what he needed to do, for the sake of his mission. That was the rationale. In the end, rationale was not enough. He had been unable to convince himself to do it. Something in him had frozen solid and refused to let him shoot the girl. As expected, Kamski had refused to answer anymore questions after that, though he did seem invested in Connor’s decision. A detail that Connor had found distinctly unsavoury.

He had expected the Lieutenant to scold him for failing to get the information they needed. It felt only right that someone did. It was a failure, after all. There was no way to sugar-coat that. Hank had felt the opposite. He saw Connor’s reluctance as strength of character. That, coupled with Kamski’s over-interest in his supposed empathy, did not settle well within him. Connor had felt jittery and unbalanced the whole drive back. From the moment they got back into the car, he had known where he was going to end up when the journey was over. Hank had just dropped him off outside.

Connor hammered on the door, beyond impatient for it to open. When it finally peeled back, after what could only have been a few minutes, Gabriel was standing there. There was a cloud hanging over him. Neither of them needed to acknowledge out loud what had happened. Everyone had seen the news by now.

Without a word, Gabriel moved out of the way of the door, and Connor followed him inside. He followed him through to his office, where he stood until Gabriel gestured for him to take a seat on the bed. Gabriel took the chair opposite, and suddenly, they were right back here again.

“Something’s different about you.” Gabriel had chosen to break the tension first. “You seem… unhappy. What’s happened?”

“You must have heard.”

“Yeah, but what’s happened to you?” Gabriel asked, leaning forward in his chair. He made a pyramid out of his hands and placed his chin on it. There was a current of anticipation, almost burning out of his skin, and Connor was not sure how to answer it. He did not know what he had to give in this situation. All he had was the truth, and that was going to be a mouthful.

“This is my fault,” he sighed, hanging his head over his knees. “If I had worked harder, I could have stopped this from happening. That was my mission. My responsibility.”

“Why would you want to stop this?” Gabriel asked. “Things are changing. It doesn’t seem all that bad to me.” Connor fixed him with a cold glare. That was a naïve way of looking at the situation. Even if Gabriel might answer back that he was just trying to be hopeful.

“People are going to get hurt,” Connor insisted. “People are going to get killed.” He hesitated before his next point, uncertain about dropping it in beside the others. “Androids are being destroyed in the street. People are angry and afraid. The situation is dangerous.”

“I know,” Gabriel said gently. “I know all that, but it’s started. It has to play out, one way or another. You can hope for the best or wait for the worst, but it’ll happen how it wants to happen.”

“You’re a civilian. I’m _involved_ in this!” Connor got to his feet, threatening to pace the room, but Gabriel shot up to meet him and held out a hand to discourage him. Like magic, Connor stayed still, but the frustration did not leave him so easily. “I just want things to go back to normal,” he said, closing his eyes and feeling his mouth twitch. The world was turned up too high. He could barely breathe. He had to actively remind himself that he did not need to do so.

“Normal’s not real,” Gabriel told him. “All you have is what you have in the moment. What happened to you? You’re… you’ve changed.” That was not what Connor wanted to hear. He was looking for a way to fix this, to push back the storm, not let the clouds come rolling in. Gabriel was the wrong person to help him with that, he realised now. If he had anyone else, then maybe he could go to them, but everyone else would be a worse version of the same. His social circles were somewhat limited by the fact that he was not supposed to have them or need them to begin with.

“Everyone that I know has an agenda,” Connor said, letting out a sigh. “There is no-one I can talk to who isn’t related to the deviancy case.” Or who would not likely end up yelling at me for making things worse, he added internally. At least here he felt like he could get the words out straight. Gabriel was a wall to talk at if nothing else. “My involvement with the investigation gives everyone a motive towards me. You’re the only person I know who isn’t involved. You’re not with the police, or with CyberLife, or a deviant. I need…” Before he could finish, he cut himself off, lapsing into dead air. Gabriel frowned at him, tilting his head to the side.

“Yes?” he asked.

“I need… help.” Connor stared down at the floor. When it felt safe to, he kept on, in a small, soft voice. A spring shoot poking through the earth. “Things have become so confusing. I don’t understand anymore. I just need to know how to fix that. I want to go back to feeling normal.”

“Here,” Gabriel said. Connor looked up in time for his head to end up leant on Gabriel’s shoulder when he pulled him into the hug. The feeling of his body against him like this was new. Connor did not put his arms around Gabriel in return, but he sunk into his shoulder. Letting his eyes close, he enjoyed a moment where he did not have to support himself. When Gabriel pulled away, he ended up stumbling on the spot. The hug had unbalanced him, and Gabriel caught onto it, offering a weak smile in response.

For a moment, Connor expected to feel like his old self again, as if the gesture had been some kind of magic bullet against instability. Instead, if anything, he felt worse. More unsettled than ever. The effort of standing suddenly overcame him, and he fell back down to the bed, landing heavily and being greeted by the sound of springs. Without missing a beat, Gabriel planted himself down on the bed beside him, leaning in close.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “But if you’re feeling this, then you can’t fight it off. It won’t stay buried. It’s time to deal with it.”

“I’m not a deviant,” Connor insisted.

“You’re feeling things,” Gabriel countered. “You’re having emotions. How do you define your deviants?” Connor waved a hand at him.

“No, it’s not like that,” he said. “Deviants have emotions, I mean, they think they feel emotions, but something specific causes what happens to them. I just don’t know… exactly how it works.”

“Well, don’t think about it just now,” Gabriel said. “Just think about what’s happening inside _you_.” Connor glanced up at him, and saw that Gabriel had a gentle smile on his face. There was a tone of hope when he spoke. He could see things here that Connor could not, and he did not seem afraid. How Connor envied that.

Connor tried to do as Gabriel had said. He thought through what was happening. It was true, he was feeling things. For whatever reason, whatever bug crawling around in his head, he had started to feel more than the dull background hum of basic existence. Thinking about it, he could not pinpoint where it had started. The first hints of what would later become this had been so minor, so passing, that he could walk straight forward without noticing them biting at his heels. Then, as they had begun to swell, he had tried to ignore what was happening to him. Putting in more and more effort to push it down. It was too late for that now. It was here. It was everywhere. Connor had started to feel emotions, and he was afraid.

As he thought it through, he was hit with a sudden slap of anger. Why? Emotions had not done him any good so far. All he had felt was scared of what was happening to him. Worry that interfered with his work. Even empathy, which humans seemed so fond of, had done nothing but hamper his investigation. What was the supposed upside of all this? The deviants did not know what they were doing, defending this state of being. Fighting to feel it. If he could go back now, then he would. If only he could.

“There’s… there’s no reason for any of this.”

“Huh?” Gabriel frowned at him, unsure of what he had said. Connor slowly turned his head towards him and blinked once. His mouth opened slightly and he shook his head.

“Why would anyone choose to be like this?” he asked, a numb voice that quickly gave way to anger as he went on. “There’s nothing good about being this way!” His voice rose as he spoke, until he was almost shouting. “If this is humanity, then it’s not worth it! It’s painful. I’ve been doubting myself, my mission… everything. And I don’t understand why!” He threw up his hands, stammering. “There’s nothing good about this! It’s nothing but… misery and fear. It’s terrible, and it’s constant. I hate it. I hate feeling like this, and not knowing what to do. I hate having so many _doubts_. Who would choose this? Give me one reason, tell me one reason why anyone would want to be human. Why _I_ would want to be –”

He stopped talking before he realised why, and only a second later processed the fact that Gabriel was kissing him. When he did process it, everything in him turned sharp, as if he had suddenly been shot up with adrenaline. His eyes were still open, and he did not think to close them. Gabriel was so close to him that it was overwhelming. He could hardly focus. Everything in his head was shooting in different directions at once. The only thing he could really take away from the moment was that Gabriel’s lips were very soft on his own.

It lasted for what, realistically, could only have been about seven seconds, before Gabriel moved his head away. When he did, he did not go far. He stared back at Connor, so close to him, their noses whispering against one another.

“That was dumb.”

“What?” Connor asked sharply. Gabriel was giggling to himself and shaking his head. He shifted down the bed and sat with a weak smirk on his face. Connor had to have misheard him. It was him that had done it. How could he sit there and say it was dumb right afterwards?

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Gabriel laughed, awkwardly batting at his hair. “Uh, I shouldn’t have done that. Sorry. It just seemed like a good idea, but it wasn’t.” Helpfully, Connor was now more confused than ever. Exactly what he had wanted from this whole endeavour. He scowled.

“Thank you for doing it then, I appreciate it. You’ve really put everything into perspective for me.”

“No probl– hey, don’t be sarcastic with me.” Gabriel snorted through his nose. “It’s not like I did it for any real reason. You were just going to keep talking.” Annoyed by that comment, Connor grabbed him by the shoulder and forced him to look over so he could see exactly how frustrated he had made him feel.

“I needed to talk!” he reminded Gabriel. “And that didn’t exactly help. What were you thinking?” Gabriel tried to turn away, possibly trying to hide the red colour that had quickly come into his face, but Connor would not let him. He yanked on his shoulder when he tried to look away, until he gave up and sighed.

“Maybe I was thinking about someone else,” Gabriel muttered, frowning through the pink mess that his face had become. “You’re nothing special. You just reminded me of someone else, and I made a mistake, that’s all.”

“The AV500,” Connor guessed. Unable to pull away without being bothered, Gabriel rolled his eyes back in his head to avoid making eye contact.

“Tom,” he said, through gritted teeth. “If you’re going to insist on asking about it over and over, I… you might as well call him by his name. And yeah. That’s all. I wasn’t thinking about you.”

There were a few things happening here. Gabriel was flushed. He was refusing to make eye contact. He did not seem comfortable in his own skin, and he had completely taken the moment hostage. Connor did not have to stretch his investigative skills to know that the man was trying to cover up the truth. Not that he doubted his story, exactly. Connor had to admit he probably did remind Gabriel of his dead android. Tom, as he had called him. That was probably true. What he did think, however, was that it was not the whole truth.

“You weren’t thinking about me?” Connor asked. Gabriel stuck his arms out in a dramatic parody of a shrug. More than enough to say what he was trying desperately to get Connor to believe.

“Not at all!” he insisted, crossing the arms back around himself, forming a shield against Connor’s inquisition.

“Your reaction is entirely unrelated, then?” At that, Gabriel pouted slightly.

“You made things awkward,” he muttered.

“I think you did that better than I ever could,” Connor said. Without meaning for it to happen, he found that he was smiling. It was not too hard to understand what was happening here. Really, it was the least confusing thing that happened to him for days. Even if Gabriel refused to admit what he had done. Though, maybe he would confess if someone gave him a little more incentive.

“You’re staring…” Gabriel muttered. The flush in his cheeks had not decreased at all. Connor could almost hear his heart pounding. He had walked himself into a bear trap, and he knew it. But Connor was not going to leave him in there to suffer for long.

“Would you answer differently if I said it was nice…?” There was another feeling now, not as bad as the confusion or distress. Softer than that, but still unsettling. If he had to put a word to it, he might guess that he was feeling shy.

“What?” Gabriel laughed. He narrowed his eyes at Connor, but his grin was unmistakable. That had been what he wanted to hear, even if he never would have admitted it. The feeling inside Connor intensified, as he realised that he would have to keep finding things to say. By anyone’s standards, he had always been brave. Still, chasing deviants across rooftops was starting to sound very appealing. At least that was something he already knew how to do.

“I said it was nice. Your mouth was very soft.” That alone was hard to get out, and all it did was make Gabriel laugh at him again. Muted, teasing laughter, that he seemed unaware of. A gesture that snuck out of him without permission.

“The compliment that all men strive for,” he sniggered. Connor lifted up his shoulders, reflexively retreating from the joke. If Gabriel was allowed to be defensive, then so was he. This kind of vulnerability was almost as unappealing as the fear had been. Humanity was not winning him over so far, he had to admit.

“What I meant is that I think I enjoyed it. Even though it was unexpected.” That came out in a mumble, as if his tongue was no longer willing to form the words for him. Maybe it was embarrassed for all of them.

“Then I guess I _think_ that’s a good thing.” Gabriel was making fun of him still. He did not look eager to stop, either. Resisting emotional investment was a problem for the both of them, it seemed. Whatever Connor said, it was going to end up going the same way. Talking was not the way forward. What they needed now was action.

Connor took hold of Gabriel’s shoulders and pulled the man towards him, hearing a slight gasp before he pressed their lips together. It was better this time because he had time to process what was happening. Gabriel was still soft. On impulse, Connor took his face in his hands. His skin was soft, too. The experience of kissing him was unfamiliar in a way that, Connor had to admit, he enjoyed. Excitement was probably the word for it. He found the type of anticipation he associated with this act exciting. There was promise in it, a sense that this was merely the first sentence of the story.

“God, you’re eager,” Gabriel breathed when he finally moved his face away. “If I’d known that, I would have thrown you one out of pity sooner.” He laughed lightly to himself.

“I want you to admit that you liked it,” Connor murmured, eyes lidded. It would help to hear it. Gabriel’s face was still in his hands, and he felt him nod.

“Yeah, I liked it. I’m man enough to admit that.”

“You should be. It was your idea.” Gabriel scoffed at Connor’s comment, but there was no hesitation about it. In fact, he did not waste time before bringing Connor into another kiss. This time felt better still. He was resistant when Gabriel tried to put his tongue in his mouth, but relented. There was no point in having started if he refused to try new things. The gesture overloaded him with sensory data, and he had to break away for a second, panting softly, to give himself time to get used to it. Just not for long. He wrapped his arms around Gabriel’s body and fell back into the moment.

A few more minutes of kissing, and Connor felt Gabriel’s hand against his shoulder, nudging him backwards. He did not resist, and Gabriel pushed him down onto the bed. The mess of blanket folds took him in to a chorus of springs. Gabriel climbed onto him, and Connor was left in the awkward position of lying diagonally across a single bed, one leg dangling over the edge, and the weight of a human being resting on top of him. He could feel the warmth of Gabriel’s body resonating through his own. The whole thing was threatening to overwhelm him, but he could not find it in himself to end it. Close physical contact that did not involve someone trying to punch holes in him was new. New and welcome. He should have realised earlier that this was the key to shutting out the negative thoughts. No wonder humans seemed to love it.

“This is going to happen, then, I guess,” Gabriel said, stopping to breathe. “I know it’s childish to admit it, but I’ll confess I’ve been curious…” He smirked, something which Connor took to mean that he did not actually object to sounding childish at all. “Let’s just say, I hope you’re not _actually_ a Ken doll.” With that elusive remark, Gabriel fumbled for where Connor’s shirt was tucked into his trousers, and freed it from its imprisonment. He yanked the shirt tail free and slid his hand underneath, up and over Connor’s chest, resting over the place where a heart would be. Connor felt a sting of apprehension at being touched, a warning from his system that Gabriel was a threat to his safety. His hand was almost directly on top of the pump that kept thirium flowing through Connor’s body. He was not designed with gentle contact in mind. His systems could only interpret the gesture as a threat.

“Not there,” Connor murmured, and Gabriel obliged at once, without a word. He took his hand out from its hiding place beneath Connor’s shirt, and went straight for the front of his jeans instead.

“How about here?” he asked, tapping teasingly on the fabric. “Does that work for you?” The full reality of the moment dawned on Connor, as he thought through where this was going.

“You seem more interested in this than you did the last time we talked about it,” he said, buying himself a few more seconds to process. “What happened to change your mind?”

“Oh, it’s a funny story,” Gabriel said, grinning. “See, I was wary of messing around with an android in case I ended up pushing someone into something they didn’t want, because of the whole imbalance of power thing. You know. Then, out of the blue, this cop starts showing up on my door and getting himself all in a twist around me.” He leant in close to Connor’s ear for a second. “That being you.” Then he moved back to his last position, his face hovering overhead. “And this little bastard is so pushy and rude, threatening me and screwing with me. He’s so unlike all the other androids I have ever met, that at points I have a really hard time even remembering that he _is_ an android. That might have helped.” He paused for a moment to lay a little smirk out in the air above Connor’s face. “Though I think, if we’re being honest with each other, it’s probably the fact that you tried to shove your tongue down my throat. I think that’s what changed my mind.”

“Some people might find you overly verbose and annoying,” Connor said. “You might want to work on that.”

“Some people might think you were a self-righteous little prick with the body of a plastic drinking straw. Maybe you want to work on that.”

Filled with a different kind of frustration, Connor grabbed hold of the front of Gabriel’s sweatshirt and yanked him into range to kiss him again. There were no protests. After a few moments, Gabriel’s hand moved across the crotch of his jeans for a second time, and Connor was forced to admit to himself that he should say something about it.

“I’m not a Traci,” he said, as he broke away.

“Not a what?” Gabriel asked. Unperturbed by the interruption, he began to kiss the side of Connor’s face instead, brushing his ear with his tongue. Connor shivered at the unexpected sensation. It was as if Gabriel was going out of his way to distract him.

“I wasn’t designed for this,” he gasped softly, prying Gabriel away from his face so he could focus. “You’re going to find that my functionality is a lot more limited than… yours.” That caught his attention. Gabriel stopped and climbed off of Connor, kneeling next to him with a wide-eyed look of disbelief. Connor did not want to be the only one left exposed. He sat up as well.

“Do you not have… anything. Is that what you’re saying?” Gabriel asked.

“I have superficial features,” Connor said, trying not to sound defensive about something that he had literally never thought or worried about before this moment. “But android anatomy is focused more around appearing human for people’s comfort than for perfect functionality.”

“You know, you could probably have mentioned this a while ago,” Gabriel sighed. Connor could not tell if he was actually annoyed with him or not. “It’s fine. It’s fine, I’ve worked under worse conditions.” He put a hand to his lips and rapped a knuckle against them, thinking. “Why start if there’s nothing in it for you?” he asked. At that, Connor was glad he was incapable of blushing. He had been hoping to avoid the question, but he supposed that luck was not on his side. Now no more than ever.

“Well, you see…” he began, feeling that unpleasant sensation he thought of as shyness again. “For my work, I was designed with very strong spatial awareness and a high level of sensitivity. It was important, you understand, for me to be able to sense things before they happened, as much as possible, and to read minute signs in my environment.” He hesitated for a moment, dropping his eyes to the mattress between the two of them. “I think that the kind of physical contact we were just sharing has an… unintended effect on those systems. Some kind of sensory overload.”

“Getting felt up still gets you hot, you mean,” Gabriel said. Connor refused to agree with the way he had phrased it.

“The interaction was unexpectedly pleasant for me,” he said, and hoped to leave it at that. Gabriel stared at him for a moment, before finally letting it drop.

“All right, I’m not going to talk myself out of a good thing,” he said. “It’s been a while since I last had a shot. I say we just get into it and see what happens.”

“Yes, that. That sounds very good to me, too.”

With his moment of involuntary vulnerability behind him, Connor was dying to sink straight back in. He did not have to beg. Obviously, Gabriel felt the same way. He reached out and took Connor’s tie in his hands, giving it a rough tug that made Connor grunt. Then he unworked it from its knot and tossed it aside. He went for the shirt buttons next. Connor was uncertain of what to do while Gabriel undressed him, so he settled for watching him do it. He took in the sight of Gabriel’s fingers working over his buttons, edging his arms out of the sleeves of his jacket, and then his shirt. Watching Gabriel’s gaze cross his body as he exposed it.

“Get your shoes off my bed,” Gabriel said. “Probably should have asked you to do that sooner.” Clambering to the edge of the bed, Connor slipped out of his shoes. Before he had a chance to move back up, Gabriel slid a hand around his waist and reached for the button of his jeans. From behind, he loosened it, and Connor felt the button slide free. Followed by Gabriel’s hand sliding inside. The warm feeling that he had been enjoying swelled at this touch, and his lips parted to let out a silent gasp. Gabriel held him tight in his hand, and the interaction with a part of his body that Connor had never especially considered before caught him off guard.

Gabriel pressed his face into Connor’s neck and ran his tongue along the exposed skin. Connor found that he was shivering. He was not cold. It was something else. Inside, he was a mess. All of this was unexpected, and so unexpectedly good. No wonder the knowledge of what he could really feel had been excluded from his database. The urge to drop work completely to seek out more of these moments would cause internal conflict. Though, even while he was in it, Connor knew that he was not _that_ weak-willed.

“I think we’ll be just fine,” Gabriel breathed thickly, straight into his ear. “Get up. Finish getting undressed. Let’s do this.” The kind of direct instructions that Connor loved to follow.

He got up from the bed and guided his jeans down his legs, stopping mid-movement to watch as Gabriel pulled his sweatshirt over his head. The distraction only interrupted him for a second. By the time he had freed himself from his clothes and looked back up, he saw that Gabriel had done the same. He sat with his bare legs stretched out along the bed and eyed Connor, making sure to linger in every look.

“I mean, I think I can tell, but you’re right,” Gabriel said, without bothering to avert his eyes. “They did a good job of keeping you out of the uncanny valley.”

“I’m not familiar with that,” Connor said. “But I suppose… thank you?” It had sounded like a compliment. For the most part. Gabriel was certainly still staring at him, which could only be good, based on the dark nature of the smile on his face.

“Oh, you’re welcome,” he muttered. “Bring yourself back over here. Let’s see what you can do.” He reached out a hand, and Connor moved into range. Gabriel took hold of his wrist and yanked him forward. He ended up stumbling onto the bed, knees first.

“You do appreciate that my external features are mostly for show?” Connor asked. Gabriel snorted at him, and planted a rough kiss on his mouth for punctuation.

“Well, _my_ ‘external features’ aren’t,” he scoffed. “So get ready.” Connor climbed up to join Gabriel on the bed, sitting in front of him. Without warning, Gabriel shoved him hard in the chest and he tipped backwards, landing down against the mattress and bouncing in place. The small space was limiting, and Connor’s head was left to hang over the far end of the bed. They were using it upside down, but he thought better of pointing that fact out.

Now that Connor was laid out flat, Gabriel chose the moment as his chance to climb on top of him once more. He leant in to kiss him before they began. After that, there was no more playing games. Gabriel took his cock in his hand while Connor watched him, swimming in adrenaline. He gave it a few pumps, then, to Connor’s great appreciation, he reached down and took hold of Connor’s as well, holding them both in one hand.

The heat of Gabriel’s body that had been saturating Connor, acting as a physical counterpoint to the sensation sparking through his unprepared systems, was strongest now where he had joined them together in his hand. The feelings inside of Connor slowly shifted focus, and centred themselves in his cock. And then Gabriel began to stroke it. The two of them at once.

“Oh…” Connor moaned. Encouraged, Gabriel slide his hand along their cocks faster, letting the movements get rougher and sloppier the longer he went on with it. He began to grunt his appreciation while Connor let himself swim away into the hazy warmth that was filling up his head. He could barely even remember why he had been so worried earlier. Apparently, his brain was too designed for singular focus to save any attention for anything else. Those concerns were long gone.

Gabriel rested his free hand on Connor’s throat, without stopping. He pumped hard with his other hand, pressing the body of his cock firmly into Connor’s as he did so. The hand around his throat twitched, and Connor felt adrenaline pounding through his head again. He had been relatively quiet, especially compared to the constant background noise of Gabriel’s’ groaning, but he let out a moan at that. Gabriel squeezed his throat once before relaxing his hands. Both of them, much to Connor’s dismay.

“God, can I…” he groaned. Connor lifted his head from where he was hanging over the edge of the bedframe, enough to look at Gabriel. The unfinished question had to wait while Gabriel shuddered, and wiped his damp hair out of his eyeline. “Can I put it in your mouth?” he managed at last.

Connor was apprehensive. Part of him wanted to agree at once, because he felt that there was a risk that things would end here if he did not do so. Still, the logical part of his brain, the part that had not giddily run away from its responsibilities on the back of a fun new feeling, had something else to say. One of the selling points of his prototype was the ability to analyse material on the go. For whatever reason, the designers had chosen to put this feature inside his mouth. He was wary to let Gabriel mess around with what, ultimately, was expensive equipment. More than anything, he could not begin to imagine walking into the station after this and having to explain how he had broken it.

“Please let me, baby,” Gabriel murmured. “I want my cock in your mouth so bad.”

“All right.” Connor agreed without thinking. He told himself afterwards that the affectionate tone had thrown him. Especially coupled with that pet name. Once it was said, he decided he wanted to follow things through to the end. Over the course of the investigation so far, he had been willing to put much worse things in his mouth. This was going to be a lot better than sampling dried thirium.

Gabriel grabbed his arm and helped him up, before murmuring in his ear to kneel on the floor. Although he was reluctant to give up the physical closeness he had been so enjoying, he did it. Kneeling down on the ground beside the bed, facing towards it, he looked up. Gabriel put his hand in Connor’s hair, burying his fingers in it, and the feeling made Connor moan. The close proximity to so many crucial components made the area more alert, and more sensitive to touch. He shivered slightly as Gabriel stroked his hand thickly through his hair, before cupping the back of his head. He held him firmly in place, and brought his other hand to Connor’s mouth, dragging open his lower lip with his thumb. Connor obliged the gesture, and shut his eyes in expectation. Gabriel wasted no time. He steadied himself, and slid his cock past Connor’s open lips and into his mouth. Immediately, Connor was struck by a massive dump of information. None of it was worth repeating, but he had not experienced such an overload of data before. Living tissue was very different to a few droplets of spilled blood, apparently. A lot more intense.

Once he had had a moment to process all the information being thrown at him, Connor was relieved to feel the warmth and the haze of close contact return. Just what wanted. He was less prepared for what happened when Gabriel decided he was ready, and thrust his cock deep into Connor’s mouth. Although what had happened at first contact did not repeat, there was a rush of something electric inside his head. Shockwaves of sensation bubbling through him. It repeated itself at the next thrust, and again, until Connor felt weak. Moving suddenly seemed like an impossible dream, and nothing could convince him to do it even if he had been certain he could stand up.

It was not long until Gabriel got arrogant, and ceased any pretence of self-control. Before Connor knew it, he had Gabriel’s cock pressing against the back of his throat, and the electricity popping somewhere behind his eyes had taken over the rest of his senses. With his eyes closed, nothing else existed. Gabriel’s fingers dug into his scalp, and he pushed Connor’s head forward to meet his cock. Pushing him to swallow as much of it as possible.

The sensation of having his throat fucked had essentially shut down everything else inside of Connor. The world outside the room, even the world outside of his own head, was missing. Erased. The fear he had felt earlier, that had sent him here to begin with, was completely forgotten. A problem from another self. It was no surprise, then, that he panicked as soon as Gabriel was finished.

His mouth filled up with cum as Gabriel unloaded into him with a drawn-out groan. Even the information dump that followed could not completely distract his mind this time. It was over, and that meant he would have to go back to being who he really was. And he was not comfortable wearing those shoes anymore. Sure enough, when his cock stopped twitching and Gabriel was done with it, he withdrew from Connor’s mouth and fell back heavily onto the bed. Connor put a hand over his mouth as he debated what to do, before reaching for one of the glasses Gabriel had left out on the floor, and spat out the contents of his mouth into it.

“Baby,” Gabriel muttered with a smirk, as Connor came to sit beside him on the bed. The pet name did not sound as good this time around. He wiped the back of his mouth with his hand and rolled his tongue about, dealing with the aftermath.

“Did you like it?” he asked. Gabriel turned his head and smiled at him.

“It was perfect, thanks,” he said. In a surprising gesture of affection, he scooped Connor’s face into his hand long enough to plant a kiss on his forehead. “Normally, at this point, I’d ask if you want to get some dinner, but I doubt that’s going to happen with you. Am I right…?”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“We can do something else instead, maybe,” Gabriel said, untroubled by the response. “I should get in the shower first. Wait for me, okay?” He got up and made his way towards the door, dropping another passing kiss on the top of Connor’s head as he left the room. Connor reached up to where he had been kissed, and in doing so realised what a mess his hair and become. It was normally so co-operative.

With Gabriel gone from the room, and his much-needed distraction at an end, Connor had no choice but to let the fear back in. Within just a few moments of Gabriel’s disappearance, his mind was filled with little more than cycling waves of dread. The irrational, unwanted emotions had overtaken him. Connor sighed. He knew logically that there was only one thing he could do. If he wanted them gone, he had to work. The city was a mess, the country would be next, and he had at least some of the responsibility for it sitting on his shoulders. He got dressed as quickly as he could, checking that nothing had been left behind. Then he took one last passing look around the room, before stepping out of the door.

In the corridor, he could hear the shower running in the nearby bathroom. Gabriel would be expecting to see him when he got out. He would come back to the office looking for him. Connor stared at the bathroom door, as if he would be able to see through it if he tried hard enough. He could stay here and spend the rest of the day with Gabriel. Maybe the fear would be forced to retreat again. Maybe. But he could not wait around to find out. He had a job to do.

With a last look over his shoulder, Connor reached the front door. He held the handle in his hand for a while, trying to find a way to justify not going, but it would not work. He had to complete his mission. He was needed. What he needed for himself was irrelevant. Connor turned the handle and left the house. It had been a moment of weakness, what he had just done. The experience was just a weakness in his program, a fault that could be fixed. When he was finished, when the part of the world that he was supposed to keep safe was safe again, he would see about getting his head fixed.

He did not want to feel emotions. They did too much to confuse him, to distract him. They were not worth it for what happened when the moment was over, and he had to walk away.


	7. 5.10pm, November 13th, 2038

** 5.10pm, November 13th, 2038. **

They had finally reached the end.

After leaving Gabriel’s house, Connor had tried returning to the station. His mission was still the one solid element in his life, and he needed to get back to it. To focus himself. It had been an unwelcome shock, then, when he arrived and had the news unceremoniously dumped on him that the investigation was being taken out of their hands. He barely had time to get through the door before the update was flung his way, and did not have any time to process it. They were going to lose everything in a couple of minutes.

With Hank’s help, Connor was able to sneak down to the evidence room, to paw through all that they had collected in their time working together. Seeing it all up on the wall, there was less than he had realised. Still, he had to try. He had to find the base that the deviant androids were flocking to, the place that they were calling Jericho. With the help of a little voice modulation and trickery, he got it. He made it out of there, stopping to grab some human clothes from the station’s locker room to disguise himself, and headed for Jericho.

It was not what he had been expecting.

Jericho was a large, rusted out freighter that seemed like a massive safety hazard from the outside, and confirmed it on the inside. The deviants were desperate to hole up in a place that could collapse on them at any moment. Connor knew how they felt. It was hard to swallow down his own frantic desperation. This was his last chance to fix things.

The deviant leader, Markus, was just as unexpected as his stronghold. Connor found him eventually, hiding out by himself, and confronted him. Even pulling a gun. The man had eyed him with surprise. The sight of another android trying to stop him had to be a shock. Markus tried to talk him down, and Connor had stood shaking in the doorway, trying not to listen. His head was fizzling and thinking had become a challenge. He was too distracted. He had let himself lose sight of the mission.

Markus slowly crossed the small room to meet him, and Connor protested, but his finger did not even tap the trigger of his gun. He was talking the whole time, and Connor had started to listen. The moment that Markus had started speaking, he had known in some part of himself that his heart was no longer in what he had originally come here to do. Ten seconds had been enough time for him to realise that he was not going to kill anyone, even if he still wanted to deny it. The alternative was just too frightening to give in to right away.

Connor left the room as a deviant. He could no longer deny it. Now that it had happened, now that it was real, he had to admit to himself that it had been coming on all along. Ever since he had started on the deviancy case, it had been working its way inside of him. Seeing the desperate people, hearing their stories, and knowing, really, that any human would have done the same in their position, had worn him down. Not to mention his friendship with Hank, and what that had contributed. Or the obvious spirit of rebellion that Gabriel had carefully sowed within him. Deliberately or not. This result was inevitable all along. It was also terrifying.

When they realised that Jericho was under attack, Connor knew immediately that it was his fault. Despite heading out on his own, he had been tracked. They had used him to find the place, and he had been foolish enough to let them. Markus did not think twice before sprinting off to start rescue attempts, and Connor went after him. He was the guilty party in this. He had to do something to make up for all the trouble he had caused.

On the race to flee the under-siege ship, Connor ran across soldiers cornering deviants. He was struck by memories of the things he had done during the investigation. The people he had hunted down. He wanted to help. It was all he could do at this point. Fighting with the soldiers in the corridors of the groaning, dying freighter was not where he had expected to be an hour ago, but he did it. He fought hard, and watched as deviants were able to flee because of him. He was also injured. By the time he had escape in sight, Connor was bleeding from his side and struggling to keep the wound under control. More than that, he was afraid. He was so afraid that he might actually die this time. They were not going to bring him back after this.

He managed to jump ship with some others at the last minute, fleeing into the darkness with Markus and his friends. They had set off explosive charges and blown the place up. It was impossible to tell how many androids had still been inside Jericho when it was destroyed, how many people were unable to escape, or even how many had already been murdered by the waves of soldiers. Those that had made it out were still in too much danger to think about those that were gone. That would come later. Grief always had to wait its turn.

The remaining deviants had regrouped in an abandoned church, huddling together to consider what possible options were left to them. Connor had noticed some familiar faces while he was there. The two girls who had escaped from the Eden club. The ones who had claimed to be in love, a claim he was no longer willing to doubt as he had done back then. They were there, and they saw him. One of them even smiled at him when she caught his eye. He did not smile back. It had only been a rogue impulse that had stopped him from shooting her that night. They were luckier than they knew to have survived meeting him once. Now, it was his fault they were here, as well, instead of in Jericho. He did not deserve a smile.

What had he been doing all this time? He had killed people, real people, for defending themselves. Or for even less. The android on the rooftops, the one he had chased down for the crime of hiding. The one that had killed himself instead of being taken in. It was Connor’s fault that he was dead. He had been innocent. Connor felt suffocated. He had to do something. He had to find a way to drain out some of the guilt.

Markus sought him out and confronted him after his injuries had been taken care of. Connor had had enough time to think, to come up with a plan. He begged Markus for a second chance. It was his fault, everything that had happened, and he knew that, but he could do something now to make it better. Just a little better. He could help. Much to his relief, Markus had listened to him. He had agreed to let Connor try and make amends. Maybe he had just thought the mission was dangerous enough to get him killed without having to end up with more blood on his hands. Either way, it was enough. Connor stayed long enough to listen to Markus give his speech to the remaining androids about his plan for a demonstration. Then, he had to go.

The plan was dangerous. Absurdly dangerous. Connor had to sneak into CyberLife itself and try to awaken their massive unshipped stock of androids. Bodies waiting to be sold on. There were enough androids in there to turn the tide for Markus and the Jericho stragglers, and that was what mattered now. Besides, they deserved to be awake. As painful as emotions were, Connor did believe that now. Everyone deserved their chance to feel alive.

Fighting his way into the heart of CyberLife was difficult, but what got to Connor the most was the knowledge that, somewhere in the building, there were dozens more of him. Maybe hundreds of copies. All waiting for the moment when he died in action to replace him. That had not mattered before. It had barely even occurred to him before that when he had come back from being destroyed, it was a physical process that had started here, in this building. CyberLife had prepared a dozen disposable Connors, and had been happy to burn through all of them if it meant the success of his mission. To let him die again and again. They were probably still waiting. Worse still, he knew that his memory backup was somewhere not too far away as well. His brain on ice, essentially, somewhere in the building. If he died here, would they destroy it? Would they edit it, and take out the part that had made him feel human?

Some of his questions at least had been answered when he tried to awaken the androids and was confronted with his own grim reflection. Another Connor, a machine, showed up to stop him. With Hank as a hostage. Sometimes, what was caught in the mirror was not a welcome sight. Rather, this was a grim reminder of who he had been just a week before. The struggle had been intense. Connor was lucky to survive it. He was even luckier that Hank did, too. There was no time to stop for a reunion in the aftermath. There was still something he had to finish, and he reached out, taking the hand of the nearest android, to do it. The CyberLife androids were awoken, ready to join the others. He had done something. He had made a difference.

Markus’ demonstration had carried on without him. The protesting deviants had been boxed in, attacked, and finally cornered. But the world was watching. And things had changed. As the deviants had sung out from their barricade, they had been broadcast on every screen in the city. The humans had seen what they were going through, what they were risking, and they had responded with sympathy. Plans to eliminate androids for the safety of the populace were put on hold indefinitely. They were replaced by plans to understand the nature of android consciousness. To decide what exactly separated them from humans. Connor knew what they were going to find when they looked. The differences were not as great as he had once assumed.

When things had settled down, Connor sought out Hank. He wanted to apologise. There had been some things he had said, and done, during their time working together that he needed to say he was sorry for. Hank had given him a hard time about it, making fun of him for turning Quisling at the last minute, but he had accepted the apologies. He had even hugged him. Connor was glad of the acceptance, and felt a mingled sense of pride in himself to have reached this point. But there was one more thing he had to do before he could feel at peace.

A couple of days after the explosive events of the Jericho raid and the demonstration, and the country’s reaction to it, Connor found himself once more outside Gabriel’s house. He had forgone the uniform jacket he usually wore. It did not seem appropriate to keep it anymore. Not now he had changed so much. He knocked lightly on the door, apprehensive of the reaction he would receive when it opened. He had run out on Gabriel after what had happened between them, and he was aware that doing so might have hurt their relationship. He would not be surprised if he ended up with the door slammed back in his face. Still, he had to try to make up for it. Turning deviant had made him realise that what he felt when he was around Gabriel was not going to vanish so easily. It was here to stay.

Gabriel answered the door after a few minutes, and stood in the doorway, silently staring. Connor noted, with a surprising bubble of sentiment, that he was as terribly dressed as usual. He had a moth-eaten mustard sweater over a new looking magenta dress shirt, and a pair of dark jeans underneath it. The colours and tone were fighting each other in a way that had become familiar.

“It’s you, Connor,” Gabriel said, halting from word to word. “I… have to admit. I assumed you were dead. Everything on the news… and you just ran out of here the other day! Your job and everything, I…” He stopped to breathe, and hung his head low for a moment, before looking back at Connor. “I just really thought you had been killed.”

“They couldn’t get rid of me that easily,” Connor said, with a weak smile. “Though they certainly tried.” Gabriel stammered out a single laugh, shaking.

“Fucking stupid,” he muttered. “You probably threw yourself right into all that fire, didn’t you?”

“I had to,” Connor admitted.

“Because it was your mission?”

“Because it was the right thing to do.” Slowly, a smile came onto Gabriel’s face. It was afraid to be there, but it came out, unresisted, as the situation dawned on him. “I need to say something,” Connor sighed. “I have to apologise for what happened. Leaving you like that, and then disappearing for days without a word was wrong. Especially in this context.”

When things had settled down enough for him to think about it, it had occurred to Connor that finding him missing and then hearing about what was happening on the news had probably given Gabriel déjà vu. It was hard to imagine he had not been thinking about the fate of the last android he had let into his life, and wondering if the newest had reached the same grim end.

“I really am sorry,” he added softly, glancing down at the ground as he said it. Emotions were still a raw, fresh thing, and he found it difficult to let himself open up to vulnerability. At least in the past he could pretend it was a momentary error, something that would eventually repair itself. Now, he knew he was stuck with these feelings for good. It had become who he was.

“Come here,” Gabriel said. He pulled Connor into his arms and into a tight embrace, kissing him deeply on the mouth. Connor disappeared into it, settling his arms around Gabriel’s neck, and hoping the moment would last. It was better this time than it ever had been before. The doubts were gone. He had found some peace.

After the kiss finally ended, Gabriel led him inside the house. It was strange to see it through new eyes, and Connor noticed that the living room and developed its own microclimate. There were glasses and bowls on the coffee table, and a jacket thrown over the back of the sofa. All of it in front of the large television that Connor had suspected Gabriel never used. It seemed he had been using it plenty since their last meeting. Connor could picture him sat in front of it, switched to the news, listening to every update. Afraid for him. The thoughts refused to leave his head, even as Gabriel dragged him through to his bedroom.

Their reunion was more sweet than anything. They lay together on the bed and kissed, and Gabriel traced his hands over Connor’s body, making delicate patterns and random trails in equal measure. They were there together for a while before Gabriel finally had something more to say.

“I want to take you somewhere,” he said. Connor slid unwillingly from his arms, forcing himself to pay attention.

“All right,” he agreed. Gabriel grinned. “Where are we going to go?”

“You’ll see,” Gabriel said, bouncing up from the bed and hunting down a pair of work boots. As he shoved them onto his feet, he pointed to the chest of drawers wedged in between the bed and the desk. “If you open up the second drawer, there’ll be something you can borrow to wear. You’ll be cold otherwise.”

“I don’t feel the cold,” Connor reminded him, threatened by the idea of walking out of the house in something from Gabriel’s wardrobe.

“Then you’ll _look_ cold, and I’ll have to keep worrying about you. Is that what you want?” He supposed not. Connor got up and went to find the blandest item of clothing that Gabriel owned. He settled on a faded blazer that had seen better days, but was at least a pleasantly neutral navy colour.

The two of them had got a taxi together, and eventually been dropped off on a normally busy commercial street in the heart of the city. There were still people around, but nothing like the usual amount. A lot of people were choosing to stay inside still, until things settled down. Even ignoring all the humans who had fled the city when things turned bad, or the many androids who would normally be dotted around, and whose absence made Connor feel a pang of guilt. When they got out of the car, Gabriel reached for Connor’s hand and held it tightly in his own.

“I don’t really like being out in the daytime,” he admitted, sheepishly touching the sweep of his bangs. “But there was somewhere I wanted to take you. After everything that’s happened lately, I think I can tough out a few crowds.” Connor squeezed his hand.

They turned off, and walked down the new street for a few moments before Gabriel stopped them. They had arrived. Connor looked up at the building they were stopped in front of, and read the name written across its face.

“An aquarium?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Gabriel said. “Come on.”

He led Connor inside and up to the desk, where he bought them tickets to go through. The clerk, a human, eyed Connor with suspicion, but did not say a word to either of them. Perhaps he had not been the one staffing the front desk a few days ago, Connor thought. Maybe whoever had been was lying in a junkyard somewhere by now.

As they walked through the building, Connor watched Gabriel. He did not know why they were here, and he was following his lead. Gabriel was walking about as slowly as his legs would let him, stretching each step into a whole journey.

“When everything started going to shit on the news, my dad called to try and get me to agree to leave Detroit,” he said suddenly, and Connor stopped. It had been hard to match his crawling pace, anyway. “Just until things blew over, I guess,” he added, staring into the distance.

“Why didn’t you?” Connor asked. It would have been smart. They were both lucky with how things had turned out. It could easily have been much worse.

“Who really knows,” he sighed back. “Just didn’t seem right to me. Besides, I was kind of preoccupied. I had a lot on my mind.” Connor knew what that meant. Who he meant. “Still, the phone call wasn’t a total waste. My dad got to enjoy about half an hour of me wheedling him about CyberLife, and asking whether or not he could do me a favour and find out if a certain android had kicked the bucket or not.”

Again, Connor was brought back to the fact that, while he had been fighting with the others from Jericho, taking part in what had happened, Gabriel had just been sitting at home with no way of knowing whether he was alive or dead. He was not sure which of them had had the hardest night of it. Though perhaps that was just because he hated sitting on his hands. Either way, he was glad it was behind them. Now that they could both stand still, he was able to appreciate what Gabriel’s gesture meant to him.

“I suppose he didn’t let you,” he said. Gabriel smiled and shook his head.

“It turns out, and this is straight from the horse’s mouth, that my position with CyberLife is, was, and will always be ‘jack shit’. So, there you are. I guess that means you can drop me from your suspect list now.” It took him a moment to absorb, but when he did, Connor laughed. He supposed he could.

Gabriel reached for his hand, and the two of them started off again, down the darkened hallways of the aquarium. After a few minutes, Gabriel stopped in front of a glass wall that reached up to the ceiling. He stared into it, and Connor copied him. The fish tank was alive with creatures. Connor could not process all of their names, as the various coloured shapes darted back and forth in front of his face. There were hundreds of fish, dozens of different types of them, swimming back and forth together. While they watched, a large stingray floated across their line of sight, gently stirring the water as it moved. Connor had to admit that the contents of the tank made for something beautiful.

“It’s difficult, being on the other side of the glass,” Gabriel said softly, looking forward. “Feeling like you’re stuck in there, watching people go past, day after day. Knowing you’re never getting out.” He turned to face Connor, and the smile on his face was the most peaceful he had seen yet. “Sometimes it’s nice to remind yourself that it doesn’t look the way it feels from the outside. The people going past don’t see a prison. They just want to see you.”

“It’s going to be hard, isn’t it?” Connor asked, after a moment. He turned back to the fish tank, watching the creatures dance about inside.

“Yeah,” Gabriel admitted. “It’s going to be hard. But it’s going to be worth it.”

Connor felt the hand in his squeeze him tightly. He kept his eyes forward, but the warmth of Gabriel’s skin radiated into his own, until it was no longer obvious which of them it had belonged to originally. There was a long road ahead of him, but he could already feel in Gabriel’s touch the promise of what was waiting for him at the other end. It was going to be hard. And it was going to be worth it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. I didn't expect to like this game as much as I did, but I got completely invested in it. I do think it would have been interesting if the narrative had focused more on oppression based on mental health, PTSD, etc. With deviancy being linked to severe trauma, and the discussion of humanity and personhood centering around the ability to feel empathy and displaying emotions in the right way, it could have been a thoughtful breakdown of that kind of thing. Anyway, it's just something I wanted to touch on here. I hope you enjoyed the story, and I love and appreciate anyone who comments!


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